Frozen: Changing Phases
by IyanSommerset
Summary: Four years after the Great Freeze, life in Arendelle remains harsh and hard. The summers are cold, the winters colder, the harvests suffer. Arendelle survives, but there is whisper of rebellion in the air. Anna, Elsa and Kristoff struggle to keep the tiny kingdom afloat in an atmosphere of uncertainty. The sisters face fresh conflict. In this frigid climate, new love will bloom.
1. Prologue: Gelid Nights

She was fifteen years old. Her lithe, thin body hung from two metal manacles attached to chains that ran through two metal rings several meters above, set in the rocky ceiling high above. Looking up at her hands, fully enclosed in the heavy metal restraints, she followed the chains up to the ceiling and then back down to large spools to either side of her. Ahead, she could barely make out the faint outline of a door, set in the roughly hewn rock wall a scant few meters away. From beyond it, she heard what seemed to be muffled voices in conversation.

The room was hot and musty. The acrid smell of sweat hung heavy in the air. Sticky strands of her long hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks, brushing against her eyelashes and stinging her eyes. Blinking, she could make out a shadow on the wall, dancing with an orange halo due to the single torch on what must have been the stone wall behind her. The dark reflection swung from side to side on the rough rock wall, legs swinging like a black human pendulum. She looked down. A foot below her lay the dirt-strewn, rocky floor. Pain burst forth from her taut shoulders as she recognized the shadow on the wall as hers. She was hanging.

Fear and panic slowly crept in from the back of her mind. The chains rattled and scraped against the ceiling rings as she started swinging wildly, her bare legs trying futilely to reach the safety of the ground below. 'Her bare legs'. A further level of terror gripped her as she realized her complete nakedness.

Patches of glistening sweat covered her unclothed body. More drops streamed from her forehead, sliding along matted strands of her hair and leaving trails down her back, around her breasts, down her legs all the way to her toes, where they leapt off her body onto a growing puddle on the floor. It was getting hotter. As if someone had lit a pyre on the ground below her. The room grew brighter. The torchlight appeared to be getting stronger. Her breathing grew more shallow and extremely strained.

The voices behind the door grew louder, more frantic and exasperated. Whoever they were, they were shouting now - at each other. The argument seemed to be getting worse. And it was heading closer. Whoever the voices belonged to, they were headed towards the room, for better...or worse.

There was a loud crash, like the sound of a tall pine tree falling on a snow-covered pile of rocks in the dead silence of winter. Eyes shut in terror, she registered the loud grinding of metal against metal, accompanied by a sudden release of pain from her shoulders. She screamed out loud as blood flowed back into her formerly-numb limbs. The sensation of a thousand tiny needles embedded in her tender flesh. Suddenly, the unbearable heat of the room was replaced by the comforting warmth of a blanket being caringly wrapped around her. She felt herself being carried, past crude stone hallways lit only by the most meager of lamps.

"You're going to be alright now." her rescuer said. "I won't let them do this to you anymore. Everything's going to be ok." She felt the rough caress of calloused fingers stroke her left cheek. It was a familiar feeling. With the sweltering sensation gone, she braved a weak smile accompanied by a peek at her rescuer's face. Still adjusting from the darkness she had been in for the past...hours? Days? She tried to make out his blurry face. His features gradually came into focus as her eyes let the moonlight in. A familiar face.

* * *

Elsa opened her eyes to find herself back in the comfortable safety of her bed in the queen's quarters of Arendelle castle. As she tried hard to banish the images of the nightmare she had been freed of, a single thought remained in her mind - the all-too familiar face of her rescuer. Kristoff.


	2. Chapter 1: An Icy Start

"That popeguy is a jerk!" Princess Anna of Arendelle screamed as she burst through the large double doors of Castle Arendelle's main throne room. Her face was as red as her strawberry blonde hair, a stark contrast to the formal green dress she was wearing. Both shoulder straps had fallen to the sides, and it seemed like she was holding the black, printed corset top up with nothing but her ample chest and sheer will.

Queen Elsa of Arendelle looked up from the stack of parchment she had been pouring over for the past hour to cast her gaze at her fuming sister. Anna had hurled her shoes at one of the corners and was stomping her bare feet hard on the wooden floors on her way to a cushioned bench in the far corner. Elsa noted that her sister, as crimson-faced as she currently was, looked rather hilariously like one of those imported American _Poinsettia_ plants they still had left-over from last Yule, especially while wearing that dark green dress.

'Oh well,' Elsa thought. It was as good a time as any to stop nitpicking at minute details of whether the new bridge for the new East-Arendelle road should be built with wood locally sourced from the forest surrounding the city. As the young queen stood from her desk, the doors swung open a second time to accommodate a pair of men, both flushed and seemingly out of breath while chasing after her sister.

She turned to address the taller of the two - a large, ruggedly handsome, blonde man in his mid-twenties dressed in the formal black coat and vest of the Arendellian royal court. Around his neck still hung the silver emblem of the Royal Ice Master and Deliverer that she had bestowed upon him four years prior. She smiled at him and he smiled back. The frustrated expression on his face did somehow send Elsa the feeling that after all these years, he was still uncomfortable dressed in formal wear.

"What did she do this time?" Elsa sighed, a slight verbal emphasis on the fact that this was not the first time her sister had returned from a formal, diplomatic meeting with a foreign delegate with such disappointing results. Of the many times she had sent her sister to deal with other dignitaries, Elsa tried hard to remember any particular time when things had gone well. She shook her head slightly as she came upon the same number every single time. None.

The large man brought his right hand to his forehead and ran his fingers through his short, blonde hair. "I tried to stop her, I really did this time." Lines appeared on his brow as Elsa noted a cute look of rankled frustration grow on his face. She understood completely. She saw herself in his eyes. Dealing with Anna was a two-person job.

The other man, a portly, middle-aged fellow whose hair had clearly seen better days, held his hands up seemingly in a sign of exasperation. "Your majesty, your sister was merely overzealous in her defense of your honor, and that of Master Bjorgman's." Unlike the other man, he seemed fairly comfortable in similar formalwear, notwithstanding the fact that he had been in the service of the household for some thirty-odd years now.

"Kai, you've known me since I was still in my mother's womb. There's no need for formalities here in private," Elsa gestured to the shorter of the pair. With a concerned look on her face, she turned her head slightly towards the taller one. "Kristoff, what happened?"

"OH NOTHING!" shouted a shrill voice from off to her right. Anna had thrown herself face-down onto one of the cushioned receiving seats in the room, her head buried under a pillow that she held with both hands. "Let's see...that...stinky pile of lutefisk had the balls to call my boyfriend a...what was the phrase he used...'a filthy, unwashed, beast-loving peasant!'"

"Anna," Elsa held her palm up in an attempt to calm her sister down.

"...and he called YOU a witch, which is quite frankly the least offensive thing I've heard dignitaries say about you in the past year..."

"Anna..."

"Oh, and to top it all off, he had the gall to insist on dealing with 'someone of a more appropriate gender!'" Elsa's little sister screamed into the soft leather cushions then resumed her tirade. "That coming from a man in a dress! You should've seen his crusty old face, Els. When I told him off to his pasty pale face-"

Elsa could do nothing more but shake her head in utter incredulity. She had been hoping for a promising outcome on this particular diplomatic mission. While most of Arendelle belonged to the state church, of which she was the nominal head, Elsa was looking forward to reestablishing ties with the Papal States. Their mother, the late and former queen, happened to be a Catholic. She would most likely have wanted relations with the powerful nation-state improved. Elsa was intending to deal with the envoy herself, but her royal duties kept her out of the public eye more often than not. It certainly did not help that Elsa insisted on being more hands-on than her father even was, personally inspecting as much of the material that required royal approval. She hadn't originally considered Anna for such an important task, but for her sister's incessant begging to be given more duties and responsibilities around the court. Elsa had hoped this time would be different. She hated being wrong.

"Oh you told him off indeed," Kristoff was grinning before his eyes caught wind of the queen looking at him and his grin melted into a more neutral expression. He looked back at Elsa. "She told him off," he said in a surprisingly casual manner. "With her fist."

"What?" exclaimed the queen. The queen looked to Kai for confirmation.

"Your ma-Elsa," he corrected himself. "Your sister, the esteemed princess of Arendelle," he paused for a moment while the mention of Anna's formal title sunk in, "threw the most glorious right hook I have ever seen straight into the oily face of the special envoy of the Papal States. She sent him sprawling into a barrel of spoiled fish," Kai paused to throw a bemused look at Kristoff who was trying hard to hold in his laughter. "From which his Genoese bodyguards had to...fish him out," he grinned in the direction of Kristoff, whose cheeks had turned beet red as he clutched his midsection, shaking in stifled laughter. "...unconscious and covered in the oil and entrails of week-old cod."

Elsa couldn't help but feel a smile creep in from the right corner of her mouth, but she managed to keep her composure. Kristoff on the other hand had managed to stumble over to where Anna was, and he buried his face in the crook of her sister's back while he slapped the wooden floor below in between bouts of laughter. Kai just stood there with a big smile on his face, a pleased look on his face for having brought some much-needed laughter into the court. Kai was the best.

A few minutes of Kristoff's hearty guffaws bellowing throughout the throne room slowly devolved into a few muffled chuckles in-between gasps for air. In between sets of laughter, he glanced at her and shook his head, grinning all the way. Elsa smiled a little. The way he was trying to mellow down whenever he looked her way made her appreciate his concern for her seriousness. It was rather adorable.

"It's not funny!" shouted her sister, head still buried among the pillows. She tried to flail her arms around her back, in what seemed like an attempt to push Kristoff off. "Look, I don't care if it's one of the Southern Isles Thirteen or that Spanish guy last year. Nobody talks like that about my family. Not even if you're a pope."

"Honey, you do realize that wasn't 'the' pope, right?" Kristoff put his palm on Anna's back, just between her shoulders and slightly above where the back of her dress top ended and her freckled skin began. Elsa winced a little as she noted how his palm made a slight indent on her sister's soft flesh. Even after all these years, the only person she was able to do that with was her sister, and even then only just. Her ice powers flaring up with touch during the past few months didn't help either. Elsa felt a little cold.

"He wasn't a pope?" Came the stifled, high-pitched voice of her sister from beneath the cushions. At least she had calmed down a little, Elsa thought.

"No honey," Kristoff's voice had turned into a tone that was more soothing. "That was just a delegate. The ahem, 'popeguy' is way down South in the States." He looked at Elsa with a proud smile. "Gregory the sixteenth, I think. Venetian guy. Hates slavery." The queen's eyes expanded in delight as she listened to the Ice Master express a few more details about the Mediterranean state. He had clearly been taking his secondary diplomatic duties just a tad more seriously than her sister was doing with hers. Elsa thought it rather was impressive.

"A bishop, master Bjorgman," Kai corrected. "The delegate was a bishop."

"_Prosit_. Bless you" The taller man responded. Elsa chuckled.

Elsa clapped her hands softly at her sister's consort. "I had a feeling expanding the position of Royal Ice Master and Deliverer to general commerce advisor was going to pay off someday." She noticed a slight hint of blush flash across his now-goofy grin. "Pius the ninth, by the way."

"Huh?"

"The new pope. Old one died last June." Elsa remembered the excruciatingly formal hand-penned letter she had to write herself last year. She and Kai poured over every single word to make sure there was nothing that could be misconstrued with a double-meaning, nothing that could be misinterpreted as offensive or condescending. She had planned on improving relations with the Papal States since she first visited their mother's grave four years ago, a week after the Great Freeze. The queen felt a sense of frustrated disappointment as her gaze went from Kristoff to her sister.

Elsa shook her head. She would have to pen another carefully-worded missive later, yet another diplomatic apology, and one of the faster messengers would have to take it to the Papal States' vessel which was surely outside the harbor by now. There would hopefully be another delegation in a few months time, and then she would have to meet with them personally. Her eyes wandered to the piles of paper awaiting her signature and seal on the desk. Suddenly, the intricate details of bridge lumber work seemed like a distant escape from what she was currently having to deal with. She should employ more advisers, but she thought of Arendelle's dwindling finances and let the idea escape her mind.

"Forget it. We'll handle it later. Kai, you know what to do," Elsa nodded at the loyal servant. Kai had served the Arendelle royal family since before she was born. Nowadays, he served as Elsa's right-hand man and most trusted adviser. They already had established a few protocols for whenever the younger princess had botched a diplomatic meeting. Elsa sighed and hoped the diplomatic vessel that was currently leaving the harbor wasn't that fast a ship.

Elsa looked out the window past the outer castle walls' green wooden roof and at the small _be'landre_ that was slowly sailing out of the harbor towards the _Sognefjord_. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. Kai's messenger would probably make it. Arendelle hadn't had much of a navy since before the days of their father's reign, and definitely not after the Great Freeze had damaged many of their seafaring vessels including most fishing and merchant ones. She guessed the Papal States didn't think much of their small kingdom, to send a third-string diplomatic mission on such an outdated vessel. They were no Bergen, Trondheim or even Christiana. Still, Arendelle was scraping by year-by-year from its exports, thanks to the efforts of the Ice Master's surprisingly effective mercantile management. She looked over at the couple on the bench. It must be difficult dealing with her sister romantically.

"Don't worry, sis. I won't let you down with the next one," Anna sat up from her position on the chair. Elsa knew exactly what her sister was talking about. The kingdom had been planning this diplomatic trade mission for months, since before the last winter cycle. No, this was too important to risk sending an amateur diplomat, much less her sister. Especially not her sister.

"No, you won't. You are not going to Svalbard," Elsa said in a determined manner. She had to put her foot down somewhere. Arendelle desperately needed the resources from this deal. The Northern Isles has a modicum of temporary settlements in the past, often used as a land base by fishermen and whalers. Only recently had there been attempts at a permanent settlement on the frigid isles, and resources were scarce amidst the Arctic climate. A fact that Kristoff had wanted to take advantage of since Arendelle was much closer to the isles than most of the other nations in the region.

"What? But I've prepared for this trip for months!" the younger princess pleaded. "I want to see the whales! I want to see the seals and walruses and the white bears! Oh Elsa, it's going to be magical. White bears! I've already packed six layers of warm clothing, three blankets, and I've even bought new snowshoes!"

The queen lowered her face into her right palm while shaking her head. "Anna, listen to yourself. Whales, dresses and shoes. Do you even know why we're sending a delegation to the Northern Isles?"

"To...see some whales?" Anna said meekly.

Elsa saw Kristoff shake his head at his beloved. This trade mission actually started out as one of his ideas as a new member of Arendelle's royal merchants. For years, he had been lobbying Elsa to expand the duties of the Ice Master beyond managing all ice harvesting and delivery throughout the kingdom. Duties that also included being the official consort of the princess and man-of-the-court, when official functions required such a thing. Elsa saw the frustration on his face as Anna seemed to forget the numerous talks they've had over the past few weeks concerning the trip.

"You don't remember at all? I just told you last night in bed-" he gulped and looked at Elsa for a split-second. Elsa almost didn't let anything break out from her practiced façade of a poker face. She did however raise an eyebrow at the Kristoff. She knew.

"Look, Anna. I know you want to be a good princess, and I know you are. It's just that, the kingdom is treading on thin ice, so to speak. We need these whale oil contracts badly. Look outside, we just had the worst winter in four years." Elsa gestured to the window. Outside, the town looked as drab and dreary as it has for the past few decades. The roofs that were in clear view from the castle were dilapidated and weathered. Many roofs still had holes torn out from the winter that had just passed. Elsa knew deep inside that part of this was her fault as well. As a snow queen, many people were expecting her to have control of the winter weather. She couldn't. She could make magical ice. She couldn't just make nature stop the changing seasons any more than she could stop the very flow of time.

"I. I just wanted to see the whales." Anna's voice had become a whimper, as if she were trying to hold back tears. "I can be a good diplomat. I promise."

Kristoff sat down beside the princess and lovingly placed his left arm around her shoulders. "I know you will, honey. Just not this time, ok? If it helps, I'm not going either. Not without you. So our first time will be together, ok?" He looked at Elsa approvingly. She simply nodded. He understood. They had known each other for merely four years and he understood, while her sister didn't. His hand gently stroked Anna's left shoulder. She barely responded.

Elsa looked on at the couple, sitting side-by-side on the bench. She could hardly look at Anna's disappointed, dejected face. She hated making her sister feel bad, which come to think of it, is what led to this in the first place. Kai had stepped off to the side of the room, absent-mindedly wiping the tabletops with a rag he must have kept handy for these situations. Over the past four years, he had seen many arguments between the sisters and appeared to have developed a routine for passing through them with the minimum of interference. It was a stark contrast to Gerda, who would always attempt to actively keep the peace between them. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time she just made things worse.

"Look Anna, this is difficult for me as well," Elsa took a step towards the sitting couple. She had to get Anna to understand. It was a logical, sensible decision. Especially after this latest botched attempt at diplomacy. Anna just wasn't ready for important exchanges. She was too raw. "I want you to be best princess you can ever be. I want you to be happy with whatever you want to do. It's just that I can't trust something this crucial-"

"Trust? So that's it? You don't trust me now?" The princess shouted at her sister. She was clearly becoming agitated, and it dripped out from the tone of her voice. Kristoff was stroking her shoulders rapidly. It almost looked to Elsa like he was trying to keep her seated.

Elsa tried to keep calm. The past few years had given her enough time to practice holding her emotions in, to prevent her ice from flaring up again. "That's not what I said-"

Her sister would have none of it. "You don't trust me? I DIED for you!" Anna shouted, eyes wide open and nostrils flared. Elsa could see the whites of her sister's teeth even from across the room. She felt a chill feeling creeping in from her inner core, spreading outwards through her veins and up through her skin. It made her hair stand on end underneath the powder-blue dress coat she had on. Her brow furrowed. Not again, not now.

The queen quickly strode to the window, gripping the wooden windowsill with both hands. Frost was starting to creep out from her fingertips as her sister's words stirred her anger. "You don't have to keep reminding me!" she yelled back. A little too loud.

Anna had shaken off Kristoff's arm was angrily walking closer towards her sister. "You're benching me? 'Cause you don't trust me! What else is there to say? You never trust me! "

Elsa took a deep breath, willed the ice back in and spun around, facing her sister. They were only a few feet apart now. Off to the side, Elsa noticed Kristoff carefully approaching the two sisters. His steps were cautious, seemingly unwilling to interpose himself between the two. Kai was polishing the same vase he had been polishing for the third time in the past few minutes. "Anna, you're being too emotional with this, think about it for a while. You haven't given me much to work with."

"Think, think, think! That's all you do. Maybe one of these days you should try a bit more feeling, sis!" Anna's face was now a few inches from the queen's. Elsa could feel her sister's hot breath on her face. And her angry gaze on her eyes.

"Anna..." she tried to avoid eye contact. That seemed to help keep the flare-ups under control. The ice was all back in now. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then Elsa felt a hand suddenly grip the bare flesh of her exposed left forearm.

"Look at me-ooooooowwwwwwww!" Elsa felt the frost explode into her sister's hand before she saw the crystalline lattice structure rapidly spread from her flesh to Anna's palm, fingers and wrist before it stopped halfway up her right forearm. She jerked her arm back with a pained scream and immediately started scraping the ice off as Kristoff rushed to her side.

"Anna I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." Elsa eyes widened in horror. Flare-ups like these were rare, only when her exposed skin made contact with another living creature. But Anna was typically exempt from this - her sister was the only living being that Elsa had made skin contact with in two decades. Only recently had she noticed her powers flaring up upon contact with Anna, only if she was emotionally agitated, and only ever since the nightmares started. This was the worst it has ever been.

"No, of course you didn't..." her sister slowly shook her way out of Kristoff's protective embrace and took a few steps back, leaving him standing dumbfounded beside her older sister.

"Anna," he started after her but in an unsure manner. Elsa knew that Kristoff was now well aware of the effects of this version of her ice – he had felt it more than a few times the past years when their skin would accidentally brush against each other. Sometimes he'd even poke her with a finger on purpose to make it happen. A frosted individual would have their emotions glaringly amplified for a while. The arm would return to normal within an hour, but the emotions would persist for a few more. She knew as well as he did that Anna would need her space.

Clutching her frosted arm, the princess shot the ice master a glare that sent him a few steps back beside her older sister. There was a savage expression on her face the queen rarely saw, but only for instances where she was extremely enraged. Situations that have unfortunately been increasing in frequency. She then turned and slammed both double doors open with one hand. Elsa stood unmoving beside Kristoff as they watched her sister disappear into the corridors of Castle Arendelle.


	3. Chapter 2: All the Fjord's a Stage

Princess Anna stormed out Castle Arendelle's inner gates into the main courtyard, barefoot. She had dropped her shoes inside, thrown into a corner of the study where she had left her sister, Kristoff and Kai behind. She cradled her right arm, pressed closely against her chest, desperately trying to rub some sensation back into her near-frostbitten flesh. This time she had managed to shake off the ice crystals in time.

As she burst out into the courtyard, the bright noontime sun bore down on her bare arms and freckled shoulders. It was the tail-end of February and the last remnants of last month's fierce winter storm was but a memory. Tiny tufts of grass and sedge were starting to peek out from between the cracks in the castle courtyard's cobblestones. Anna made her way towards the main wall nearest the gatehouse, where there against the old rock facade was a newer structure made of timber and stone.

It was a small shed, not even half as spacious as her bedroom back at the castle. The walls were made from rough stones quarried from the fjord, built up to her waist. Past waist-level, the walls then transitioned into roughly-cut pine trunks that went all the way up to the ceiling, which was also built from hacked pine logs. Strands of dried wheat stalk poked out from between the timbers that made the roof. Kristoff had insisted on building the shed himself, three years ago, Anna remembered. Elsa had offered to have materials and labor paid for from the royal coffers, as he was essentially part of the family even way back then. He had declined, saying that the space was more than enough. That was when he moved from his small hut outside the town limits into the castle, upon Anna's insistence.

She reached the outer part of the shed, which was somewhat open to the elements unlike the inner room which was fully enclosed and insulated. Anna knocked on one of the wooden posts and poked her head inside one of the windows. "Hey."

Lying on a pile of freshly-dried chaff was a large, grey reindeer, its legs tucked beneath its body while its head rested on a smaller pile of hay. It opened one eye to peek at the princess and then molded its mouth into a rough approximation of what appeared to Anna like a rather goofy grin.

Carefully, she unhooked the inner latch of the door and slipped into the shed. It felt rather peaceful, she thought to herself. The slight warbling of birds that had flown in early for the post-winter thaw echoed in chirps against the wooden beams above. She made her way to the half-sleeping reindeer and plopped down beside it. Anna buried herself comfortably within the crook made by the animal's bent body and rested the back of her head on its back. "Hey Sven. I guess it's just us again today, huh?" She placed her left hand on top of the reindeer's head.

He gave her a concerned look, punctuated with one raised eyebrow.

"Nothing, just another stupid argument with my incredibly square sister. And by the way, your best buddy took *her* side. Just like last time." Anna sighed. These arguments with Elsa had been happening way more often than she would have liked. The last one was just fading from her mind, a small verbal spat a little over a month ago over. Something to do with Anna interfering with Kristoff's new merchant duties. Anna swore the snowfall that evening was exceptionally strong even for a January snowstorm. At least Elsa didn't freeze anything that time.

Her attention went down to the aching forearm that she was still clasping close to her much warmer bosom. "She did it again, Sven. Faster this time, and way more painful." The sensation of being jabbed by a thousand needles was fading away, only to be replaced by a dull chill that seemed to reach down from the surface or her skin towards her bones.

"No, I know she doesn't mean it. She never does. Just like that first time, at the ice palace..." Anna's voice trailed off as images of that fateful day four years ago rushed back into her mind. The sound of Elsa screaming 'I CAN'T!', and then the ensuing magical ice shards that explosively radiated out from her body and struck Anna through the heart seemed as clear as day. Goosebumps erupted on her arms, along with the rest of her body as she remembered the sensation of death's chill touch spreading outwards from her heart. She shook her head, accidentally freeing up her strawberry blonde hair's twin braids from their formal styling.

"Yes, I know the _real_ first time was what started this whole thing in the first place, but I still don't remember anything from that night." The princess closed her eyes and futilely attempted to recall the events of that _other_ night. The one that occurred more than fifteen years ago when her sister's magic hit her in the head and turned a streak of her white. Or so they say. Elsa didn't like to talk much about the past, and Anna never really pushed that particular issue. The only details she had of that night were bits and pieces that Gerda had let slip, and Kristoff's version of events from when he first met his family. After a few minutes of squinting at the rafters, the princess shrugged in defeat. "Don't think I want to anyway."

The princess turned on her side to face the barely-conscious reindeer. Somehow, even with his eyes half-closed and occasional snoring, she was appreciative of the fact that someone was around to listen to her. She pressed her cheek into Sven's furry flank, taking in an aromatic mixture of cervine musk and dried hay that just reminded her of nights when Kristoff would come home to the castle after a hard day of work. A tiny smile crept across her lips as the scent stirred feelings deep inside her that threatened to push her heartbeat into a thumping crescendo. Feelings that gave her a sense of…tightness in certain places. No, not now. She shook off certain risqué images from her mind and recalled why she had run out of the castle today in the first place.

"I just, you know. Want more from this. Sure, I'm a princess, but that can't be all there is to it. I wanna be something more. I _can _be something more. Sure, I've got a great guy who's probably going to ask me to marry him one of these days," she gave Sven a knowing glance. His eyes popped open in response to her statement, and she heard a bray escape from his mouth. Anna grinned. Just the right thing to say that would wake him up. "Well, now that I have your attention, I just want to say for the record that I am very, very pissed off at your buddy for taking my sister's side today."

Anna rested the back of her left hand on her forehead and stretched her right arm towards the ceiling, her hand alternating between clenched and open. The chill feeling had almost evaporated from beneath her skin. "I mean, they both always seem to go serious-out on me these days. What's up with that? What's wrong with wanting to find the fun in every situation?" Tiny pinpricks of sunlight shone through a few gaps in the thatched roof, one catching her in the right eye before she moved her palm to shade it. "I can't believe he let himself be pulled into that serious thing either. And I'm not buying that 'I need to be able to stand on my own'."

"He probably has a good reason for doing that," a slightly higher, more-feminine voice than usual came from the reindeer. "He's lived most of his life alone. He doesn't want to suddenly be dependent on you or Elsa."

"Yeah, but he's supposed to stick with me for better or for worse." Anna pouted. Ever since Elsa had expanded his role as Ice Master to include non-ice commerce dealings, their alone time had dwindled to an occasional few hours per day here-and-there. Anna missed spending entire days just watching Kristoff hack away at frozen lake ice. She hadn't even held an ice axe or a saw in the longest time. The princess absent-mindedly lightly ran her thumbs over the callouses on her inner palms.

Sven gave her a bemused look. "He loves you, and he's supposed to look out for you regardless of what you want at the moment. He just wants to make sure he can hold you up while still standing on his own two feet," He said in a high-pitched voice.

"Oh great, you're against me on this too? Do I have to go and find a certain snowman to talk to now?" She rolled her eyes to the side, catching the reindeer giving her a bemused look.

"I know, my sister and my boyfriend are just thinking of what's best, for everyone. For the kingdom. I guess I'm going to have to play my part in this after all." Anna sat up, steadying herself with her good hand on Sven's neck. "Thanks buddy. I'm already feeling better. I think I'll go for a walk. Wanna tag along?"

Sven just looked at her sleepily, eyes half-open.

"Okay, bye!" she sang out, her melodic voice reverberating amidst the birds chirping in the rafters.

With that, Anna rose from the hay pile and went into the shed's inner room. After a few minutes, she stepped out dressed in commoner's garb. Anna was now clad in low-cut sealskin boots , a pale green, woolen skirt that reached down to her ankles and an olive drab vest over a white cotton undershirt. She looked at the thick wool cape she had draped over her left arm. It was getting warmer now, especially with the afternoon sun high up in the cloudless sky outside, but she couldn't risk being recognized when out on these town walks. Despite being a princess, Anna quite enjoyed being "just" one of the faceless anonymous, even for a little while.

The princess of Arendelle slipped the grey cape on and pulled up the hood over her now-free flowing red locks, tiptoed past the sleeping reindeer and quietly let herself out. She absentmindedly rubbed her right forearm. All of a sudden, it didn't feel so cold anymore.

* * *

The mid-afternoon sun was starting to make Anna rather uncomfortable. Her heavy cloak was becoming more of a curse than a blessing, and she wiped away a few more sweat-soaked strands of strawberry blonde hair from her cheeks. The brownish, hemp sack she was carrying plopped to the dry, rocky ground beneath her as she let out a tired sigh. She found herself just beside the town bakery, a quaint little brick-and-mortar structure named 'Kaspers'. It was larger than many of the other structures around Arendelle, including a small, circular structure that probably served as a silo where Kasper stored flour. Even in the middle of the day, the aroma of baked bread still lingered in the warm air.

Still incognito, the princess smiled at the little boy sitting on the stone steps that led into the structure. "Hi Alvis, is your dad home?"

The boy, no older than twelve, looked at the princess and smiled back. "Kjerstin!" he squealed in recognition, calling Anna by the name she usually went by when she made these anonymous forays into the town. "No, he's at the mill getting another sack of flour. Are you here for more bread?"

Anna leaned backwards against the pale brick wall and wiped her brow. "Well, I've had a busy day but I guess I always have enough space for a buttered roll or two." Her arms and legs were aching from walking around for the greater part of two hours, slowly filling her sack with goods she bought from shops around town. There was a low rumble from within her stomach. Her last meal was had been earlier in the day, a few quick pieces of smoked herring and two rolls before she had met with the Papal States ambassador. She wasn't expecting to miss out on midday lunch so she didn't really think about stuffing herself so early in the day. Then again, she wasn't expecting to have her arm frozen by her sister.

"Sorry, miss Bjerland. We're all out until papa comes home with more flour." Alvis looked towards her with a disappointed look on his face, his hands raised in faux-surrender. "It was a thin harvest last fall, but you prob'ly know that already."

Anna simply nodded, her hand subliminally stroking her complaining stomach. "It's okay." She picked up her sack and rifled through its contents. From within, she pulled out two small, gnarled carrots, each no bigger than her hand. It had been a rather poor harvest – the worst since the freeze. The carrots, as small as they were, were the best she could find from the vegetable market earlier. She held out one of the little orange digits towards the baker's son. "Want one?"

"Yuck." He stuck out his tongue in disgust.

"Suit yourself," the princess grinned, shoving one of the tiny carrots between her teeth. It made a satisfying crunch as she bit the crop in half and stared straight into the young boy's eyes while chewing with her mouth half-open.

"Ewwwwwwww."

The horrified look on the boy's face just encouraged her to stick her tongue out at him, covered in sticky orange goop. With a yelp, he ran inside the bakery and poked his head out the window nearer to Anna.

"You really should eat your peas and carrots, you know. Veggies are good for you." Anna reached out with her left hand and ruffled the hair on top of Alvis' head. She placed the other carrot on the wooden window frame, in front of his large eyes. _Ah kids_, she thought. Anna remembered when she used to hate eating vegetables too, which wasn't really that long ago. It was only recently that she had picked up the taste for raw carrots, from Kristoff unsurprisingly. His manner of half-eating and half-sharing fresh produce with Sven had rubbed off on the princess, who picked up the habit after some time. "If you're not going to eat it, at least give it to Geil, alright? She can probably chuck it in your dinner stew, then you have to eat it."

"Yes, ma'am." He pouted his lips and took the carrot rather reluctantly.

Anna thought about leaving more produce for the Steffensens, but there was little in the sack in terms of edibles. Most of what she had been able to buy were trinkets and carvings from the artisans throughout town. A tiny woven basket from Kippi Tonessen from her little stand near the castle gates. Some wood carvings from the Bradt shop down by the city stables. And a few other doodads and whatnots that caught her eye earlier. Anna made a point of patronizing Arendelle's homegrown craftsmen, especially during the past few years of unfavorable economic conditions. She looked down the street and silently enjoyed being in the company of people who didn't think of her as a princess to be pampered. It was still a few more hours until sundown, when her sister and her boyfriend would notice she hadn't come back yet and have Olaf go and find her. She still had more time to go around, and the short rest had replenished her energy reserves, even with just the carrot in her belly.

"I have to get going, tell your parents I said hello!" Anna picked up her slightly lighter bundle and waved at Alvis. With a wave of her right hand, "Kjerstin Bjerland" left the Steffensens' bakery and continued on her placidly slow, meandering route around Arendelle. She stopped at a few stalls to pick up more goods. She bought a few small potatoes from Birgit Mehland, a young teen who just recently married Leif Mehland, a local farmer. Anna had to assure her that the potatoes were fine, as she was apologizing for the poor condition due to some potato-blight or something that Anna didn't quite understand. Kristoff did mention something like that, but that was a year or two ago. It stuck in her mind because she was wondering why their imported potatoes were suddenly smaller.

Next was a stop by one of the smoke shops on the edge of town. She picked up two dozen pieces of smoked _storsild_, a small silver fish that was somewhat of a local delicacy. One of the smoke shop attendants, a large man named Froede Salmonsen, assured her that this batch of smoked herring was still good despite it being made from before the past winter. He gestured towards the empty barrels lining that particular street and informed "Kjerstin" that the _storsild_ were still awaiting the last few days of February before they returned to the fjord en-masse. They typically arrived during the start of the year, but apparently last winter was too cold for the fishes or the fishermen. The disguised princess assured Froede that the fish was perfectly fine and chomped down on one to the delight of the smokeman.

After a dozen or so of the tasty fish sticks, Anna finally felt her stomach calm down in satisfaction. Arendelle wasn't in such a bad shape as Kristoff and Elsa had believed, at least not from what she had seen so far. Sure, life was harsh but the people had heart. It was just a long winter, after all. Longer than the past year's. And the year before that. And the one before that one. And right before that was the freeze. The princess looked in the direction of the castle. From where she was standing, there wasn't a clear view of the royal residence, save for the upper towers and their flags fluttering in the wind. Oh well, she shrugged. She swore she saw Gerda wiping down one of the windows from the inside. Besides, heart is all you really need, right?

It was when she reached the road near the Eastern docks that the princess-in-disguise noticed a cloaked fellow behind her she had seen for the past hour, always at the edge of her peripheral vision. At first, she didn't think too much of it but when she saw a flash of metallic green peek out from underneath the person's neck, she knew something was up. Shaking her head in recognition, she led the figure down one of the more sparsely-populated docks where there were barely any people, only the lapping sound of waves against idle wooden hulls and the shrill sounds of gulls on the water. She noticed the figure stop when she reached the end of the stone pier, then stand perfectly still in surprise as she doubled back and strode back towards her pursuer.

"Kaptein Jorgen, how nice to see you here on the docks. Out for a stroll?" The princess grinned and stopped beside the hooded, cloaked figure. Shrugging in defeat, he pulled his hood back to reveal the face a somewhat middle-aged man in his late thirties, framed by a close-cropped crown of dark brown hair, ending in thick sideburns that reached down to his chin. A single scar ran down his face diagonally from the upper ridge of his right brow, crossing the bridge of his nose to below his left eye. He stood at least half a head above her, just a little shorter than Kristoff, and a tad less muscular.

"Alright princess –"

"Shh, I'm in disguise!" Anna interrupted.

The man rolled his eyes back and sighed, "ahem, miss Bjerland." He brought up a gloved hand and scratched his head. "How did you figure it was me this time?"

Anna pointed at the Kaptein's neck, towards the greenish glint she had seen before. "You really should stop wearing your official breastplate when my sister orders you to follow me around. Arendellian emerald knight armor just isn't very…camo-flag-ey, you know?" She tapped the metal breastplate that peeked out from beneath the Kaptein's cloak. It made a slight clinking sound as her nail made contact with the thin, steel plate.

"I wasn't following you, your ma…miss. Her majesty and master Bjorgman have been in the study all day long. I was merely…on an errand," he stammered.

Anna noted the hesitation in his voice, but gave it no further heed. She looked over the water towards the fjord. The sun was low on the horizon now, on the other side of town, and the late-afternoon rays of sunlight glinted against the deep blue waters of the fjord. She turned her attention Southward, towards where she knew it joined the larger Sognefjord, which was Arendelle's one reliable link to the rest of the world. So, Elsa and Kristoff hadn't even been looking for her. She sighed.

Anna turned to look at the man standing beside her. Kaptein Hjalmarr Jorgen was a member of what served as Arendelle's royal guard since she was a small child. She could remember him following her father, the late king of Arendelle, around when there were state visits by foreign dignitaries. They would always stay in the outer rooms of the castle – most people weren't allowed into the main building, back when their parents were still concealing knowledge her sister's magic. Back then, he was one of the few people who were allowed within the castle walls, along with Kai, Gerda and a few others. During the Great Freeze, he was assigned to guard their visiting cousin, the Coronan princess Rapunzel and her husband Eugene. After the thaw, Elsa officially appointed him the head of the Arendelle royal guard and promoted him to the rank of Kaptein. Anna didn't really know much about him other than that, except that he was extremely loyal to her late father. And that he had grown protective of her the past four years, to the point that he was one of the few individuals who knew about her second life as "Kjerstin Bjerland, a visiting merchantwoman from Christiana, Norge."

"In all seriousness, your majesty. It is nearing sundown and I really should make sure you get back to the castle before then. Your sister is going to miss you at dinnertime," Hjalmarr nodded towards the cloudless sky, which during their short conversation had taken a more bluish tone. The days might have been getting longer, but it was still a ways off from the long days of summer.

Anna reached up and pulled the kaptein's hood over his face, overshooting and dragging it over his eyes. He was like the big brother she never had, she chuckled. "If you are to accompany me back towards the castle, then you have to stay in disguise as well. Kjerstin will attract too much attention with a royal escort."

The captain fidgeted uncomfortably and gave her a somewhat guilty look. "I ah, I wasn't in disguise your majest-"

"Sure, and my sister isn't the snow queen," she interrupted. "And how many times do I have to keep telling you, I hate being called that. Call me anything, princess, princess Anna, Anna, anything."

Hjalmarr shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, ma'am."

Anna grinned. She enjoyed making Hjalmarr squirm. He seemed like such a by-the-book type of person that even the mere aspect of informal communication appeared to make him incredibly uncomfortable. And he seemed exceedingly jumpy today, at least to Anna. "Well, Hjal Jorgen, lead the way!" She gestured back up the sloped stone pier towards street level, where people were walking around, going about their daily business. The sun had disappeared past the rooftops off to the West and what little could be seen of the main spire of Castle Arendelle was bathed in a glowing orange halo.

"By the way, if you're going to keep bodyguarding me like this, we're going to have to come up with a fake name for you too." Anna teased.

If the kaptein heard, he didn't seem to acknowledge her words, save for a grunt and what could be interpreted as a slight shaking of his head. He took out a pocket watch, glanced at it for a few seconds, shook his head and shoved it back in one of the pockets of his outer cloak. Anna could have sworn he glanced East a few of times as he did. Perhaps he was checking if they were being followed.

Giddily, she started half-skipping as she reached into her sack and pulled out two, finger-length pieces of smoked herring. She placed one in her mouth and offered the other one to her guardian. "_Storsild_?" She waved it right underneath his nose.

Hjalmarr smirked, took the piece of fish and popped it in his mouth. "Thank you, your ma…Annaness." He winced and grinned at the same time.

The princess chuckled.


	4. Chapter 3: Of Sandwiches and Snowmen

The chill sensation shot up his finger like a thousand tiny needles jabbing into his flesh all at the same time. From the tip, it slowly crept up through the bone towards the knuckles like a snake cautiously spiraling its way up a tree. A thin layer of ice crystals were slowly bursting out from beneath the skin of his digit, coating it in a slight crust of translucent spikes that pretty much felt like it looked on the inside. The ice started crawling up his hand before he lifted it up.

"Kristoff, please stop that." The queen said in a rather tired tone. She didn't even bother looking back and up at him from the small pile of paper on her desk that she was resting her chin on. Kai had already cleared out the other piles she had finished a little over an hour ago, and what remained on her large oak desk was a half-finished sandwich on a little platter. Her right arm was stretched out straight on the table and she was poking the sandwich with the tip of her gloved finger.

The chill sensation-"I said stop, please." The queen turned her head sideways to the left and looked at him with one eye. His finger hovered less than an inch above her left shoulder, stretched out and already anticipating the cold embrace of Elsa's ice covering it in a thin layer of frost. Kristoff looked into her eyes and saw a weary kind of tired that brought him back to those frigid nights when he would spend hours cutting and hauling ice blocks out from the lakes around the North mountain.

With a guilty smile, he cautiously withdrew his hand from above the queen's back and slipped on one of the wool gloves he always kept on his person for times like these. Kristoff placed his sheathed hand back on Elsa's back, his palm resting on the valley between her shoulders, just below her neck. Even between his thick wool glove and Elsa's cotton dress, he could feel a slight coldness seeping out from her body reaching out towards his. He started massaging the back of her neck with his gloved hand and almost immediately felt the tenseness of her muscles straining against his strong fingers. He could feel an entire afternoon's worth of stress fighting against his light kneading.

A low, tired moan escaped from her lips. "Doesn't it hurt?" She whispered through a satisfied smile, eyes closed with her right cheek flat against a sheet of parchment. Her left eye flicked open towards him. "Your finger, I mean?"

Kristoff winked at the queen as he finished his impromptu royal backrub. He strode to the other side of the large, antique desk and sat on one of two chairs that faced each other opposite the queen. His gaze wandered across one of the triangular windows that opened out into one of the castle's gardens. The bright greenery outside had taken on a paler, bluish tinge as the late afternoon sun had been replaced by the light of the moon.

After Anna had stormed out of the castle early in the day, it had taken Elsa the better part of an hour to calm down enough to be able to function properly. Kai had cancelled one of her two meetings that afternoon and she had Kai attend to the other one in her stead. Officially, he was head of the Arendelle castle staff and personal assistant to the royal family. Unofficially, he was extremely competent as her right hand man, often able to manage official royal business arguably better than the queen ever could. That left Kristoff in the study to assist Elsa as she went through the calming exercises taught to them years ago by his adopted family, the trolls from the Valley of the Living Rock far to the Northwest. Kristoff didn't mind helping Elsa calm down, despite the aura of cold she normally radiated whenever she became as agitated as she had been after the argument with Anna. He was used to the cold, maybe even liked it. Even before fate had intertwined his fate with that of the two sisters four years ago, Kristoff had been a man who favored the chill embrace of winter. The Ice Master had been but a simple ice harvester back then, hewing entire blocks of solid lake ice and transporting them into Arendelle and its surrounding towns by sleigh and cart to be sold to the townspeople. In fact, he had been harvesting ice since as far back as he could remember, when he was a young boy following his ice harvester father on long trips to the mountains, where ice still formed even during the height of summertime.

After the Great Freeze, the queen bestowed upon him the title of Arendelle's Royal Ice Master and Deliverer, for his heroic and selfless actions that contributed to the return of summer. At first, the position felt rather dubious and artificial. Kristoff never really felt comfortable with that. Besides, what possible use could an ice harvester be to a kingdom ruled by one who could create ice out of thin air? At the time, the title felt rather like a contrived justification for a commoner such as him to keep relations with Anna. As progressive as Arendelle was, there would be talk if word got out that the sole remaining princess was keeping relations with an unlanded peasant. His reservations regarding the position were quite unfounded. As it turns out, the queen had neither the time, nor the energy to make the hundreds of ice blocks that Arendelle and its surrounding towns consumed each day. That left Kristoff and the other ice harvesters with more than enough demand to fulfill. However, it turned out that the position was more management and commerce than the actual harvesting and delivering of ice. Much to his surprise, it was a position that Kristoff grew into very quickly and competently. Soon enough, he was in charge of all of Arendelle's official ice dealings, from local distribution to exports. Thinking about it, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Ice was his life.

"Anna hasn't come back yet has she?" Elsa's soft voice jarred Kristoff back into the present. The queen's study was dark now. Faint moonlight attempted to stream in through the three, large triangular windows on the outside wall but there wasn't enough reflected light to reach a significant swathe of the room.

"Hmm?" Kristoff looked at Elsa, confused. They had been in the study the whole afternoon, together going over and discussing the finer points of shipping ice from the Sogndal region, to the East. The cluster of villages and hamlets surrounding the town was near the Arendelle-Norge border. That particular region of Norge was somewhat lawless and dangerous, ever since Norge had been placed under the rule of neighboring Sverige. But that was history for Kristoff, and history wasn't one of his better interests, not like ice. They had spent the better part of the afternoon discussing everything from possible transport routes along the fjord to the purchase of steamships from Weselton for transport. That added another layer of problems since Elsa had cut off commercial ties with the duchy four years ago. Apparently, Elsa was still angry with the attempt on her life during the freeze by the Duke of Weselton's men. Kristoff had attempted to reason with her, but two frozen pencils later, had dropped the issue. Still, he disagreed and planned to bring it up at a later time. Holding personal grudges in a rapidly expanding commercial world was going to cost Arendelle dearly if he didn't.

Kristoff followed Elsa's gaze towards a plump, shadowy figure that had apparently just entered the study. It was Kai, carrying a small lit lamp. "No, your majesty. Your sister hasn't returned yet as far as I can tell." He placed the lamp on the desk opposite the wall closest to them, right beside the door. It was small and provided very little illumination, casting only a meager afterglow that barely reached halfway towards the overworked pair on the other side of the room. "Dinner will be ready in an hour, Master Bjorgman." Kai responded to Kristoff's unasked question as the study door closed behind him.

The ice master looked at the queen with a slightly bemused look on half of his face. "I hate it when he does that," he mumbled out the side of his mouth, his right cheek flat on the wood of the desk, mirroring Elsa's posture on the other side.

"He's psychic," she said with a one-eyed half-smirk. A joke. The snow queen of Arendelle, Elsa the queen of seriousness had just made a joke. She must be tired, Kristoff thought. He gazed at her soft, tender face lying an arm's length away from his' own. Her large, almond-shaped eyes were gently closed. He could make out a slight, purplish, almost-pinkish tinge along her eyelids, just above her long, black lashes. Her face was so much like Anna's, and yet so different. Her nose was a little closer to her rosy lips…smaller, pointier, almost cuter. She had a light dusting of pink freckles on her cheeks, much less prominent than her sister's more so in the pale moonlight. His gaze lingered a bit longer on her lips. In contrast to Anna's fuller, more carmine lips, Elsa's were thin, pale with the sides curled slightly downwards that seemed to belie a certain hint of sadness to them. They looked so much softer, lighter than Anna's. The image of his strawberry princess biting down on her lower lip brought a small smile to the weary ice master. That lip bite usually preceded a more…physical kind of playfulness that he was oh so welcome to indulge. Lying on his side, staring at her sister's similar face, he couldn't help but think how adorable the queen would look with her teeth pressed firmly down on her lower lip, her eyes staring up at him waiting for him to make a move, like they were staring at him right now.

'_Wait, what_?' their eyes met for a fleeting moment before he glanced down in embarrassment at being caught staring. Stealing a quick glance back at the queen's face, he was surprised to see a similar look of self-consciousness on her face, as color flushed into her cheeks. "Um, I. Ah." Words refused to form in his mind as he sat back up, his back slapping hard against the seat's wooden headrest.

"Um, so…" the queen's voice cracked with a little squeak. "How's you-I mean, what ah." Queen Elsa looked rather flustered sitting on the other side of the desk. Kristoff watched her arrange, re-arrange, and re-arrange three sheets of paper in front of her. After a few minutes of awkward silence, she broke the ice. "So. How are things between you and Anna?"

Anna. Yes, Anna. Right. Kristoff was jarred by the sudden thought of Anna out in the town after dark. She was probably on her way back. The last time she had disappeared after an argument with her sister, Kristoff had discovered her sleeping in Sven's after lunchtime. She was probably still there, he thought. "We're fine. I guess." He noticed Elsa's eyes widen just bit at the last line. "I mean, we're good. Just good. She's cool, I'm cool." Now there was a look on confusion on her face. "I dunno."

"You love her, right?" Elsa asked bluntly, a side of her he still wasn't used to compared to the normally composed and formal face she put out in public. Only in the past year when the additional mercantile duties were added to his ice master responsibilities had he seen this side of the queen. Tired Elsa. Private Elsa. Elsa letting go after a full day of being battered left-and-right by her responsibilities as monarch of Arendelle.

"Of course I love her." He answered out of habit. After four years, there wasn't much they didn't know about each other. He pictured Anna's wild, red mane, cascading around her neck and down her bare shoulders when she woke up in the morning. She knew how he smelled after a hard day's work out on the lake ice. He recalled her picking her nose every now and then…and curiously licking her finger when she thought nobody was looking. She knew just how many marble potatoes he could shove in his mouth at the same time. He envisioned Anna's freckled face, head thrown backwards and her eyes rolling back as he brought her to heaven, and the way her body just collapsed as he gently eased her back down to earth.

"I love her. Of course I do," he repeated to himself. "It's well. Four years. Four years and you pretty much know everything about a person. I mean, it's not a bad thing. It's great. You see what works. You see what doesn't. You try to change. She tries to change. Adjusting. You know. Um," he looked at Elsa. She was resting her chin on both hands, her elbows on the table, a look of intent curiosity in her eyes. "You know?"

"I don't…know." Elsa face rose slightly as she slumped her shoulders. "I've never been in love, so I don't know." He watched her shift her chin slightly to the left as she brushed a wayward lock of platinum-blonde hair from her forehead with her right hand. "Kristoff, I haven't really been out of the castle in months. Aside from Anna and you, I don't really have any friends."

"That's not true. Kai and Gerda have been for like, forever," Kristoff responded. Kai and Gerda had been constant fixtures in the sisters' lives even before he had met them. Of the royal servants, they were the closest to family that the two have ever had, especially since the death of their parents over seven years ago. The way they went about their business in the castle, to Kristoff they might as well have been around since forever. Gerda in particular always seemed to uncannily know where Anna and Kristoff were whenever they went on their late-night trysts when they believed everyone asleep. Kristoff shook his head at the number of times he and Anna would sneak out of their quarters in the dark and meet in one of the castle's empty rooms only to come out to a lit hallway leading to both their rooms. One steamy night in one of the castle's outer towers, they had come out of the room to a matching set of fresh clothes on a stool conveniently placed right outside the door.

"Yes. They have," Elsa chuckled but the smile vanished from her face as quickly as it had formed. "But to them, Anna and I will always be the princesses…I mean, the princess and the queen. It's different with you and Anna. You two don't see me as queen. To you, I'm Elsa. Just plain Elsa."

Kristoff looked a bit confused, but he knew what she meant. "Just Elsa? Let me tell you right now, there's nothing 'just' about you, Elsa." He looked her in the eye. Even across the shadowy band of darkness separating them across the table, Kristoff focused on her blue eyes, always hiding a certain weight behind them. "You'll never be 'just' Elsa. Not to Anna. Not to me."

He could hear the queen's sigh from across the table. "But I like being 'just' Elsa," she said meekly. This was a tone of voice that in his four years of knowing the sisters, Kristoff had never heard. It seemed like Elsa had dropped all of her barriers, all of her refined veneer, the multiple-layered masks she typically had on when going about with her queenly duties. For the first time in forever, Kristoff felt a bit uneasy around his lover's sister.

"Elsa, are you feeling alright? All day long you've been…different," Kristoff asked with a concerned tone. "...a good different." He added, for reasons he had no idea why. Maybe it was the fight with Anna. Perhaps it was the light lunch and the even lighter midday snack. He himself was feeling slight pangs of hunger knock on the very periphery of his stomach. "Are you hungry?" He asked.

The queen slumped forward on the table again, her head buried against a frame made by her interlocked arms on the desk. "No, I…" she angled her head to look at the ice master with the left side of her face. "I haven't been sleeping well."

Kristoff nodded in understanding. "The past week?" He asked. It had been a pretty hectic week for official business. Aside from Anna's botched handling of the Papal States visit that Elsa had been planning for a year, there was the preparation for the Svalbard whale oil mission that had been keeping the ice master busy for the better part of a month, even before the winter snow had thawed. And then there were the concerns that had been building up for the past few winters. Arendelle needed more wool, and given their icy relations with Sverige-controlled-Norge, the closest other source was Weselton, far to the West. To add to all that, the kaptein of the royal guard had put in a request for modernizing a part of the kingdom's armory. Kristoff hadn't even gone over the request yet, but he remembered kaptein Jorgen saying something about Coronan needle guns. He shook his head at the thought of guns firing needles. That would be easy, as they could directly petition the Coronan princess Rapunzel, who happened to be Elsa and Anna's cousin. That's if they could get safely through the fighting between Sverige and the Southern Isles in the Oresund. Kristoff found himself staring at the map of Northern Europe on the far wall, above the lamp that Kai had left lit. Arendelle seemed so small, sandwiched between the larger Scandinavian countries that surrounded it. He turned back to the queen. "It's been a bad week, I know."

Elsa turned her head back into her arms, facing the surface of the desk again. "…the past year." Her voice had almost softened to a whisper. "I've been having…dreams." He noticed her gloved fists clench ever so slightly. "...nightmares. Just nightmares." The queen bent her neck to rest her chin on some parchment, her interlocked arms still in front of her. The bottom part of her face now hidden behind her powder blue coat sleeves, she looked up at him pleadingly with huge eyes. "Please don't tell Anna. I don't want to burden her with more worrying." There was that sisterly concern in her voice that was missing the entire day. A certain something in the queen's voice that told Kristoff everything was going to be ok between the sisters in the morning.

"I won't. I promise." He reached out across the table and patted her wrist with his thickly-gloved hand. There was some residual cold, but it didn't ice over. She didn't jerk her hand away like she normally did with unannounced physical contact. Then again, he was the only one brave or stupid enough to even attempt physical contact with the queen. Even though she had some control over her powers, thirteen years of trauma just couldn't be undone that easily. "Do you want to talk about it?" He tapped her wrist, noticing an aura of cold attempting to cross the thick wool of his glove.

A slight shaking of her blonde hair on the top of her head as she buried her face back within her arms was the queen's only response. The thin braid that she typically wore around the top of her crown had had already slid off and was starting to unravel into a mess of long, platinum strands. Kristoff could see a thin layer of frost start to crystallize on the table around Elsa's slumped form.

"Elsa, you're icing." He alerted her, looking at the few sheets of parchment and paper that were now scattered across the tabletop. Nothing important. A humorous thought crossed his mind as he noticed the plate that had been shoved off to the right. At least the sandwich wouldn't spoil. "Elsa."

"I know!" Came a pained, half-shout from the queen. Her palms were flat against the slowly-freezing wood of her desk, to either side of her body. She was gritting her teeth and pressing her forehead against the tabletop.

Kristoff jumped up and hurried around the desk to the queen's side. He could feel the temperature dropping even through the thick mitts of his gloves as he placed his hands on Elsa's shoulders. "Breathe. Remember what Pabbie taught you? Breathe Elsa. Breathe. Breathe…breathe…" He timed his calming voice to coincide with the alternating light squeezing on the queen's shoulders. It was a joint-calming technique Kristoff's adoptive grandfather had taught to them whenever Elsa was losing control of her powers. The ice master thought hard and tried to remember the important points. He hadn't needed to calm the queen down like this in years. "Um, listen to my voice." He wracked his memory but couldn't recall all the important details. He decided to wing it. "Um, ok Els. Count with me. One. Two. Three." He had no idea what he was doing anymore. He could feel the frost through his gloves. It was almost through to his skin now.

After a few moments, he realized Elsa had already joined him with his count. "Eighteen…Nineteen." Her heaving back was rising and falling slower now, and the ice on the table stopped just short of the plate containing the half-eaten sandwich that now had tiny, crescent-shaped holes poked into the hard crust of its top slice. The count had reached fifty when all the ice had receded from the tabletop. They kept it going to a hundred just to be sure.

Just when he thought she had calmed down enough, Kristoff lifted his palms from her shoulders. They felt raw, a little frostbitten even. He rubbed them together, letting the heat soothe his frigid hands. "This is getting crazy Elsa. We have to bring you to Grand Pabbie soon. Maybe even continue your training again." He shook his head. A few months after the Great Thaw, Kristoff and the sisters had started traveling to the Valley of the Living Rock to Kristoff's adoptive family to help train Elsa in controlling her powers. It was a relatively long journey, and would often take days at a time, entire days which Arendelle went without an active monarch on duty. Eventually, Anna volunteered to stay behind during these training sessions. Kristoff still recalled the day he and Elsa had returned to see Anna, crying in the study after botching relations with a neighboring kingdom. It was there and then that Elsa decided to postpone her training to deal with her queenly duties. That night also marked the first big argument between the sisters since that time in Elsa's ice palace during the Freeze. Kristoff hadn't moved into the castle back then, and he remembered spending the next few nights at his tiny shack outside Arendelle with Anna, having run away from the castle. It was also their first time together as lovers.

"Pabbie. Yes. Training." Elsa's voice cracked. The queen looked up at the ice master and nodded weakly. She seemed disjointed, flustered. She then shook her head, "but Anna…"

Kristoff patted her behind her right shoulder. Still no ice. Phew. "She'll be fine. We'll bring her along. I suppose Kai and your other advisors can handle affairs two, maybe three days a month." He had no idea what he was suggesting. Sure, Kai and Elsa's advisors could probably handle day-to-day duties in Arendelle, but there was a curious balance of power between the royal house and the kingdom's council of elders, composed of the chosen heads of the major towns and villages within the country's limits. A few of them were sympathetic to the Norge-Sverige union. Leaving the kingdom without either Elsa or Anna physically present would not be good for Arendelle. Still, Elsa needed this. He found himself enthralled by the worried look on the queen's face. If his strawberry princess was a spark of energetic joy, the queen was painful despair in human form. Kristoff resisted the sudden urge to hug Elsa, to make that tormented look on her face sublimate into something more hopeful.

She smiled at him and nodded in agreement. "Next week?" she asked, sitting back and playing with the thin, blonde braid that had torn loose from her formal hair. With one gloved hand, she swiped what appeared to be tiny tears from the corners of her large, almond-shaped eyes.

"You know, you two would make the nicest couple!" A loud voice came from the other door to their right, the one that opened into the castle's inner corridors. It was Olaf, the fourth member of their odd little family. The diminutive snowman was holding the door open with one branch of a hand as he peeked inside with his oddly misshapen head. "I mean, if Anna weren't around. She just got back by the way, and dinner's ready. See you!" With that, the snowman slammed the door leaving the room in a cold, awkward silence.

After what seemed like forever, Elsa stopped staring at the dim glow of the lamp in the far corner and reached for the plate with the now-cold sandwich chunk on it. "I guess we should go."

The ice master nodded and moved back as the queen pushed her chair backwards and slowly stood up. The rumbling in his stomach had returned, and he was halfway to reaching out for the half-finished slice of bread Elsa was holding.

As they left the queen's study through the door the snowman had peeked through, Elsa nudged Kristoff's meaty left flank with her clothed elbow, sending a tiny sensation of ice through his thinner, wool coat. The ice master noted a small, playful grin form on the queen's face. That was on purpose. "You never answered my question, you know."

Kristoff gave her a confused look. "Question?" He asked.

"The ice. My ice. Doesn't it hurt?" She referred to Kristoff's habit of poking her with his bare, unprotected finger, just to trigger the queen's reactive ice on his bare digit. The corridor towards the dining hall was long and dark, sparsely lit by tiny wall sconces every few meters. The kingdom's shortage of lantern oil was starting to affect the castle. In the dim light, the queen was grinning at him, holding up a finger covered in magic icy crystals.

Kristoff grinned back at her as he closed the door behind him. Ice was his life. He had been handling ice since he was a young boy. A little magic ice threatening to freeze his finger off wasn't even nothing. It was addictive

"Nah. The cold never bothered me anyway," the ice master's solid voice echoed through the corridors of Castle Arendelle. The queen's hearty laughter echoed along with his own.


	5. Chapter 4: Zero Gravity

Cold. She actually felt cold. A cold embrace amidst the darkness. Her eyes tried to adjust to the blackness but found not a single pinprick of light to latch onto. The dull aching in her arms was starting to spread downwards from her wrists to her shoulders. There was a certain tightness that grew from the base of her neck, radiating outwards towards her fingers and another that sent tingling jolts of ice down her back. Her arms were starting to tire.

From the darkness, there was a slight flash of light, like torchlight glinting against rusty iron manacles around her hands. She couldn't see her hands. They felt heavy. Encased in metal. Encased in ice. She felt her feet swing freely beneath her. Her wrists felt like ripping off from her arms. The weight was incredible. The pain was unbearable. Her entire body was supported from two, fragile points that screamed out at her body through a thousand nerve endings.

Nearby, someone was shouting. No, people were arguing. Muffled at first, but as she tried to focus past the pain cascading all over her wracked body, she managed to pick out two distinct voices. Voices of a man and a woman. They were shouting at each other in a language she couldn't recognize. As the voices grew louder, the pain in her shoulders exploded in a burst of agony. She screamed. It hurt. She didn't know how much longer she could hang on. Any moment now. She started begging for release.

Over her whimpering sobs, a familiar female voice cried out in the darkness.

"Elsa."

* * *

"Elsa!" The voice of her sister ringing in her ears jolted her out of her trance. The snow queen blinked her eyes at the bright sunlight reflecting off of the surface of the pond a few meters away. The sun was high in the sky, a glowing white orb nestled among a sparse forest of wispy gray clouds. The wet, spring grass tickled a little as she pinched a few, moist tufts between her toes. The ground beneath felt rather stiff and hard against her bare feet.

The shouting voices in her head slowly faded away, to be replaced by a mixture of singing birds, chirping insects and the rustle of leaves slightly above and around her. There was a slow trickle of water coming somewhere from the direction of the pond. There, standing by the side of the small body of water, was Olaf. He stood beside Sven, both of them staring in her general direction.

She looked around. To her right, a few feet away, Kristoff was staring at her with a concerned look on his face. For some reason, he was standing in a half-crouch with both arms raised in front of him, hands held up palms-down at shoulder-level. To her left stood her sister, in a similar crouching pose with an equally concerned look in her eyes.

It slowly dawned on Elsa that the throbbing ache in her shoulders was from holding her arms up in front in her, mirroring both Kristoff and Anna's odd poses.

"Alright, meditation time over! It's time for a break!" Anna shouted and jumped up in the air, jabbing her fists towards the sky. She winked at the queen. "Sis, you need to get out more practice. That was barely five minutes." With a playful slap on her sister's shoulder, the spunky redhead ran to the shore and picked Olaf up and threw him in the water. "Summer!" She shouted with glee.

Elsa felt a gloved hand tap her lightly on her shoulder. "Elsa, you can relax now." Kristoff's reassuring voice flew past her head, barely registering in her mind. Everything still seemed to be in some sort of a haze. "Elsa? Your queenliness?" Relief came over her as she felt him push her arms down, one by one. "I take it, you weren't exactly meditating?"

She shook her head at him. She wanted to tell him about the nightmares. She wanted to tell someone. Her father's words echoed in her mind. _Conceal, don't feel_. A mantra that she lived by for thirteen years. Elsa looked at her sister, playing by the pond. She was now riding on top of Sven, holding Olaf's midsection. The slightly shorter snowman was clumsily chasing after the princess and the reindeer. No, the queen shook her head. She couldn't shove her sister back into the darkness after stealing so many years of her life. She hated concealing anything now.

The queen found herself looking at Kristoff, standing by her side. Well, Kristoff's chest - the ice master stood several inches taller than the queen, especially in her current crouching pose. Slowly, she pushed down on her heels feeling the hard, icy soil beneath her soft, pampered feet. Wait, what? She looked down at the ground beneath her feet. The soil was slightly frozen like permafrost, not enough to be seen but hard enough to be felt.

"You know, ice is my life." He folded his arms across his chest and gestured down to the frozen patch of grass under her feet. He smiled at her and shook his head. "I won't tell her. I promise." He guided her towards a small tree, softly guiding her down on the soft grass at the base of its dark trunk. "You should get some rest." He sat down on the grass to her right, stretching his arms straight up for a few seconds before he rested them behind his head. "This meditation stuff is tiring stuff. I'm glad you've finally agreed to start training again though."

The tired queen leaned backwards and missed the tree trunk. "Ooh!" Her head plopped down a few inches beside Kristoff's thick thigh. Her surprised eyes met and held his confounded gaze for the better part of a minute, until she started shaking with laughter. The ice master joined the queen in her laughter.

Above them, there was a slightly green canopy of leaves emanating outwards from the black trunk she had missed with the back of her head. What dark remnants and spectres that hid in the shadowy recesses of her mind evaporated with her childish giggling. The queen tilted her head ever so slightly to slide Kristoff's dirty blonde locks within her field of vision. A sense of elated gratitude welled in her heart.

It was the ice master's ardent insistence for the past few weeks that the queen return to occasional training sessions with his family that finally got her to take a day off from her royal affairs. This was her first foray out of the castle since before the last winter season. Elsa couldn't even remember what that outing was for. Something to do with blessing a new church in one of the nearby parishes. Of course, that this excused Kristoff from a few days of his commerce and mercantile duties was a fact that she just let slide. The queen snuck a glance up at him from the corner of her eye. The gentle giant was leaning his back against the tree's trunk, hands behind his head and eyes shut, with a big, satisfied smile on his face. The look of a person at one with nature.

Elsa felt a tiny tinge of envy at the former mountain man turned ice master. He seemed to have this certain connection with nature that she, even with her elemental powers, could only ever scratch. Out here, in the fresh spring air, miles away from Castle Arendelle, without all of the responsibilities heaped on her shoulders by her parent's untimely deaths, Elsa felt lighter than she had ever been in years. Not since those two precious days in her ice palace on the North mountain, four years ago. Her mind wandered eastward towards a cluster of shadowy peaks far off in the distance. There, nestled somewhere within the peaks of the _Jotunfjeldene_, stood the crystalline structure where she had exiled herself to during the Great Freeze. She hadn't thought of her castle in the sky in the longest time. Elsa couldn't even remember the last time she had visited its icy confines. The smooth and sliding sensation of the cold ice beneath her bare feet, the slightly warm tingling on her skin as filtered sunlight passed through the translucent walls and tickled her sensitive skin, the sterile aroma of powdered snow wafting slowly through the thin, mountain air. There was a certain yearning that knocked on the carefully constructed walls around her heart. A yearning that threatened to burst free, destiny be damned.

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure Mallow's been keeping the place clean and tidy," a soft, manly voice came from somewhere above her.

_Wait, what?_ The queen turned her head upwards to look at Kristoff, pressing the braid wrapped around the back of her head deeper into the moist grass underneath. The ice master was looking down at her from the corner of his eye, but his face was facing the East as she had been for the past few minutes. A few rays of afternoon sunlight that passed through the canopy of leaves above them danced in little patterns on his face, across his aquiline nose and reflecting on his lightly blonde hair. She had no idea how long he'd been looking at her but for some reason, he had glimpsed the thoughts that had been floating through her addled mind.

The ice master shrugged. "I miss 'em too sometimes. The mountains, I mean." She looked up at his face. From her angle on the ground, there seemed to be a certain sense of longing in his eyes, a tiny glint of desire buried under a mask of stern responsibility. A mask that felt the same to look at as it felt to wear on your face day-after-day. "Cold nights. Being alone. Just me and the ice. It feels like…"

"Home."

The word escaped her lips even before the thought was done crossing her mind. Half a moment later, Kristoff's voice echoing the same exact word was still ringing in her ears. Over the chirping birds in the branches high above. Over the slight rustling of the leaves in the cool spring breeze. Over her sister's cries of playful laughter amidst occasional reindeer braying and a snowman's shouting. Over and above the thumping of her rapidly beating heart. The queen tried to hide her amazement as she slowly glanced back up at the ice master. There too, was that all-too-familiar awkward expression on his face that had fast been becoming a common expression whenever they chatted.

The queen immediately thought of shifting to the topic of conversation they seemed to hide behind whenever these moments of synchronicity arose. "So, um. Anna." Elsa stammered.

"Yes, uh. Anna." Kristoff coughed, nodding. His attention was now drawn towards the three figures playing a few dozen meters away by the pond shore. The queen pushed off the fresh grass and sat up beside the ice master, one leg drawn up for support. She rested her chin on her knee, her lower leg cradled in her arms as she looked in the direction of the pond. The princess was riding backwards on top of the reindeer, who didn't seem to mind as he drank from the safety of the shore. The snowman had his thin wooden arms around her sister's neck as he clung to her back, the small flurry of a cloud a foot above his head softly raining snowflakes on both of them. The tiny flakes rested on Anna's strawberry hair, glistening in the sun scant moments before they melted into droplets of water that disappeared into her reddish mane. The two, short braids on either side of her neck shook as the princess waved vigorously towards Elsa and Kristoff.

Elsa waved back rather timidly, then realized Kristoff was leaning back against the tree trunk with his eyes closed again. "Kristoff." The queen tapped him lightly on his shoulder, too late to realize she hadn't been wearing her gloves. His eyes shot open as she felt her frost cross through the thin fabric of his gray, cotton sleeve before she instinctively jerked her hand away. "I am so sorry!" she shouted in surprise, holding her right hand close to her chest. The snow queen scrambled towards a brown, sealskin satchel resting on the fresh grass a few feet away. She flipped open the latch that bore the Arendelle's crocus seal and drew her teal, cotton gloves from within. It was stupid and careless to not be wearing them in public, the queen admonished herself. Not even with someone she was close to, like Kristoff. Even her sister had inadvertently been triggering her frost touch the past few months. No, for the time being, the gloves had to be back on.

The queen jerked forwards, almost losing her balance as she felt a sudden tap on her shoulder. It was heavy, and yet gentle. She followed the gloved hand on her shoulder up to Kristoff's reassuring smile. "Elsa. Don't worry about it, I'm not hurt. It's cool. No pun intended."

As small laugh escaped Elsa's lips and she felt the icy tightness in her chest, neck and shoulders slowly dissipate. She watched the ice master kneel down beside her and gesture towards his shoulder. "Elsa, it's okay. I'm fine." Kristoff said to her reassuringly. He loosened the upper buttons of his shirt and pulled his left sleeve down, exposing the flesh of his shoulder. "See? No ice."

She looked at the lightly-tanned flesh of his shoulder. There were no ice crystals on his skin, not even a light coating of magic frost. She must have jerked her hand away much quicker than usual, the snow queen thought. At least the training was working. Somehow. The snow queen found herself staring at the thin lines that ran from the ice master's chunky shoulder to the base of his neck. And then down to the light fuzz of hair on his muscular chest, partly peeking out from his partially worn shirt. No ice there either.

"I'm going to have to stop lending you my boyfriend if you keep icing him, sis." Her sister's voice boomed in her ears. The plucky princess threw herself at the ice master and started poking at his left shoulder. Anna puckered her lips and started pecking on the hunk of flesh in front of her face. "Did the big, bad snow queen huwt you, my widdle baby?" The shoulder disappeared in a mess of red hair and braids as she smothered it in kisses.

Kristoff smiled at Elsa as he lovingly stroked the back of her sister's head with his right palm. "It's fine, strawberry. Just cold. No ice this time." He raised Anna's chin with a finger and leaned in for a light kiss. Elsa barely noticed him steal a guilty glance at her before his lips touched her sister's. The princess energetically wrapped her arms around his thick neck and pulled his face closer to hers. Elsa just watched intently with a morbid sense of curiosity. Her sister, oblivious to the spectator a mere arm's length away, straddled Kristoff's bent leg between hers, pushing herself down against his knee. Elsa couldn't help but notice the slight undulations of Anna's drab, green skirt as it draped over the ice master's leg, slowly hiking up as it crumpled between their bodies with each slow thrust of her hips. Kristoff wasn't helping either. His left arm was hooked behind Anna's lower back while he had the fingers of his other hand buried in her hair, right between where her twin braids started. Elsa's gaze was drawn to the way their noses touched as their tongues danced within each other's mouths. All of a sudden, the cool March breeze didn't seem so cold anymore.

The queen felt her blue, cotton dress grow just a tad heavier with perspiration. Each breath was fast becoming an arduous task of forcing the spring air down her increasingly dry throat and pushing it out with the same strenuous effort. Sweat was making her damp sleeves stick to her arm. A feeling of tightness crept in covertly from somewhere within her. There was something about the slightly muffled sounds that her sister and her companion were making that was clouding the queen's thought process. Something about the way Kristoff's neck muscles bulged and strained as the two lovers kissed right in front of her. Elsa coughed and gasped, out of breath. Apparently, she had also forgotten to breath for the past minute or so.

When her vision finally cleared, Kristoff was slowly buttoning up his upper garment while Anna was pulling down her skirt that had hiked up around her waist. Elsa squinted at the sight of her sister's bloomerless thighs, slightly blushing at thought of her sister eschewing underwear in public. The possibility had never even occurred to her, not even on those rare occasions that she wore conjured dresses made of magical ice. She always made sure she had a silken slip or a cotton chemise underneath her mysticwear. Those times were much rarer now than before though. And thankfully, so was waking up wearing nothing but a water soaked nightgown. Most of the time it was just water.

Her sister's voice brought Elsa back. "To be continued...tonight?" The princess was staring right at her lover's face, her eyes seductively half-open with a look upon them that Elsa swore bordered on playful lasciviousness.

"As always," the ice master sighed and gave the princess a big, oversized grin as he stood up and straightened his clothing. "You're just a big bundle of energy, strawberry." Kristoff's cheeks were still flushed from the impromptu make-out session and his breathing was labored. Elsa watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. The plain grey cotton shirt wasn't something she was accustomed to seeing on him. She noted that Kristoff's wardrobe usually consisted of thick, woolen coats and similarly-thick undershirts. Seeing the thin fabric draped lightly over his muscular form hastened the blood to her face again. The queen looked down to hide her blushing cheeks.

"We should get going in a while," Kristoff motioned to the sky, which had taken on a slightly more orange hue. "We've got a few hours until sundown and Kaptein Jorgen wanted to make sure we make it back to town before the moon comes out." The ice master nodded in the direction of Arendelle, just a bit to the Southeast of the hill they were on.

Anna looked up at him, then to her sister, then to the snowman and the reindeer still by the shore. "Where is Hjal anyway? He said he was going to stand guard down there," she swept her hand downhill, "but I haven't seen him since we got here." She was right, Elsa thought. Kaptein Jorgen had joined them on this training excursion when they left Castle Arendelle early in the morning but he was now nowhere to be found. The queen didn't think too much of it though. Perhaps he was patrolling the surrounding area, she wondered.

Kristoff sighed, shrugged, and picked up one of the satchels that had been lying around the base of the tree they were leaning on. "I'll go find him." He pointed to Olaf and Sven who were casually walking towards the group, having come from the pond shore area. The reindeer's antlers were dripping wet with some sort of aquatic vine draped all over them. "You. Snowman. You're coming with me. Let's go find the kaptein." The queen watched the odd trio head disappear over the crest of the small hill they were on as she felt a dull thud beside her.

Anna's head plopped down on her lap, a big satisfied grin on her face. "This was fun. We should do this more often." The princess reached up behind the queen's neck and pulled the thin, blonde braid that was wrapped behind her head down over her left shoulder. "So, how are you, big sis?"

"Better?" Elsa hesitated a bit before pulling off her left glove. With her uncovered hand, she started stroking her sister's strawberry blonde hair. "I'm glad we went out today, even if my training wasn't too…productive." The queen's gaze followed a pair of black-headed, small, brown birds as they launched themselves from the branches of a nearby tree and headed West towards the direction of the setting sun, a deep orange glow streaking across the sky, emanating from behind a nearby mountain ridge.

She felt a slight tug on her braid from below. "You were fine. You've almost got the snowdrift making down even better than when we used to play as kids," her sister picked a tiny blade of grass that had worked its way between her tightly braided hair. "Can't say the same about your snowman-building though, Olaf's still waiting for a younger brother," Anna teased with another tug on her braid.

Elsa smiles and took both of her sister's, short red braids in her fists, one in each hand. She started drumming them on her sister's cotton-clad chest. "It's not easy to make the snowmen. I've tried for years, but Olaf seems to be one-of-a-kind." _Thup_. _Thup_. _Thup_. The tips of Anna's braids made such a satisfying sound slapping on her breasts.

"Two," Anna corrected.

Elsa gave her sister a quizzical look.

"Two-of-a-kind." The princess reached up and plucked another blade of grass from higher up the flaxen mass of hair she was playing with, almost beside her cheek. "You forgot Mallow," Anna poked the queen's cheek with her index finger.

She turned her head to look in the direction of the North Mountain again, where the blue and yellow skies were already being swallowed by the purplish tinge of nightfall. "Right. Mallow." The gargantuan ice monster she had created during the freeze was still roaming her ice palace's empty halls, she assumed. After the Thaw, most of her icy creations had either sublimated into magic nothingness or thawed with the return of summer. The snow queen had created a special, persistent cloud over Olaf to keep him 'alive' in the normal, non-magical temperate clime of Arendelle. Marshmallow, as Olaf had christened the larger construct, had no such 'flurry' and couldn't leave the relative safety of the icy castle, which served as much a home as a prison to the colossal snowman.

"We've been putting it off for years, we have to go back there someday. Maybe after we go to troll valley next week?" The princess had finished picking out bits of vegetation from her braid and was now using the tip as a brush, swishing it back and forth across her freckled cheeks.

"That's next week? We're going to the Valley of the Living Rock next week?" Elsa dropped her sister's braids and cupped her hands around her mouth. Since the queen had agreed to resume her magical training, the trio had been planning on a trip to the place where Kristoff's adoptive family lived. The last time Elsa had been there was years ago, before the pressures of being queen overtook her. However, the past year or so of her powers flaring up and growing more uncontrollable had given her a new resolve to learn to control them and use them properly.

"For someone so smart, you're bad with time, sis." The princess pulled down gently forcing the queen's head closer to her chest before playfully dusting Elsa's petite nose with her own blonde braid. "No wonder you always need Kai following you around like a walking…schedule-guy." The princess slapped the queen's forehead with the braid she was still holding between her fingers. "Yes, that's next week. I would've wanted to see Bulda and the gang today, but noooo…miss queenie has an appointment in the morning."

"Oh," was Elsa's one word response. "It's just that, I have too much on my plate these past few weeks…"

"…try years," her sister interrupted with an annoyed tone in her voice.

"…ahem, fine. Years." The queen looked down into her sister's large teal eyes, so full of joy and hope. Even that whole foul business with her failed engagement to Prince Hans of the Southern Isles during the freeze wasn't enough to snuff out that spark of energy that Elsa couldn't even imagine a fraction of existing within herself. The thought of the mere possibility of hurting her sister again brought a terrified grimace to her face. No, she had to go through with the training, even though the Valley of the Living Rock was almost fifteen _fjerding_ away from Arendelle, or about forty kilometers, she calculated in her mind. That was at least a full day of travel by horse-drawn cart given sufficiently maintained roads. However, any roads were mentioning only reached to the border town of _Førde_, and they would have to travel the rest of the distance East on foot. Or hoof, in the case of Sven.

The queen of Arendelle sighed at her predicament. Four days off per month, for the safety of her sister and her only other friend. "Yes, next week. I'll have to leave everything to Kai and the council. Again." Elsa leaned down and planted a soft, sisterly kiss on Anna's forehead. Yes, anything to keep her family safe. From herself.

She looked around but there was still no sign of Kristoff, Olaf nor Sven around although she could hear the snowman's operatic voice shouting for Kaptein Jorgen every now and then. The sun had already disappeared over whatever horizon the mountains around them could offer, and it was starting to get noticeably dark. It would be past dinner when they arrived back in Arendelle. Gerda was going to be miffed that her stew would have to be reheated by the time the royal family got back home.

"Stop worrying, Elsa. They're fine. Kris is an awesome woodsguy. They'll be back in no time." A petite voice shook her out of her imagination. Anna had sat up and was leaning on her right shoulder. Even at twenty one, Anna was still apparently as light as a feather, although her head did place considerable strain on Elsa's back.

The queen angled her head slightly to the right, bumping temples with her sister. "So, Kris. You two are…doing well, I suppose?" The question came to her out of the blue. Something about that kissing earlier that seemed to keep bringing the ice master's image to the forefront of her mind. Him and that thick, meaty shoulder of his.

"Yeah, well. I suppose." Elsa felt her sister's arms wrap around her torso. For such a lithe, petite woman, Anna was surprisingly strong. The queen had to breathe a little harder to fight against the sudden constriction around her ample bosom. "I mean, the lovemaking is great and all-"

___The what? _Elsa shot her sister a glance that hovered between incredulity and shock. There might have been a tinge of envy as well. After four years of being reunited, her sister's nonchalant outwardness still struck the queen from time to time. She wasn't crass or uncouth, just incredibly honest about things. Including things that should normally be kept behind closed doors. Hmph. Elsa admonished herself silently. There were those words again. Normal. Closed doors. She felt her arms wrap over and around her sister's. No, Anna was fine as she was. The princess didn't seem to mind anyway, she'd apparently been talking over Elsa's introspection for the past few thoughts. The queen made an attempt to clear her mind to try to catch up.

"…but you know, it's like…been almost four years this June and everything feels like home. You know, the kind of home that you love to come home to at the end of the day but you already know everything there it to know about it? Every secret passage, every hidden trapdoor in the attic, even the hollows in the walls so you can peep in on your sister's bedroom. It feels so...routine. I just wish he'd be more exciting. Adventurous. Crazy. I love crazy."

Elsa understood the gravity of her sister's words more than she let on. It was nearing four years since she was crowned Queen of Arendelle and everything felt so…stale, for lack of a better word. Life was static. Her mind wandered towards the bag from which she drew her gloves earlier. There, in a small hidden pocket within, was the small circlet she wore as a crown. The queen shuddered at the thought of having to wear it once they returned to civilization. Her neck already tightened in grim anticipation of the tiny bangle's immense weight on her brow. Just for a tiny instant, Elsa remembered why she had run away all those years ago. "…I wouldn't mind a little crazy," she mumbled.

Her sister tapped her on the nose. "Elsa, are you listening?" Anna's large teal eyes were inches from her own. Elsa could feel the heat of her sister's moist breath on her nose. _That's what Kristoff tastes like. _She chastised herself for the thought.

"Huh? Yes. Routine. Kristoff. Adventure. Crazy," the queen fumbled for words while trying to feel around the fog of her short-term memory. _Wait, what was that about hollow bedroom walls?_ A few more strands of hair fell out of place as she shook images of Anna scurrying around the castle, spying on her from her mind. "What?"

"…anyway, so I was wondering. It's been almost four years. When is he going to ask me to marry him?" Her sister's last words shot through her mind like a crossbow bolt through a thin pane of ice.

Elsa felt the blood rush straight to her head as she choked on a combination of cool, spring air and saliva. "Marry?" She managed to cough out. In front of her, her sister's wide eyes waited excitedly in anticipation of a her response. She could clearly see the white of Anna's teeth as the princess gave her the widest, most adorable grin she had ever made since they were children. Caught off-guard, the queen rustled through her thoughts, struggling to form a coherent response in her mind. "Uh, you can't marry a man you just met."

"You're silly, sis. Four years. That's like…forever!" the playful princess pinched and pulled both of the queen's cheeks outward, forcing an awkward, unnatural grimace on her face. Then, just as quickly as she had burst into elated shouting, Anna's face melted into a mask of sadness as her eyelids drooped and her lips pursed into a thin slit. "I feel old, sis. I don't want to be just another princess until I grow old and die. I feel useless. I know I'm lucky I met Kris when I did, and I don't want to lose that, ever." The princess pushed up from the ground and stood firm and tall, her face facing the dark blue sky above. "I just want my happy ending. That's all." A meek, almost whimper floated down towards where the queen was sitting.

Elsa looked at her sister, standing motionless with her straightened arms to her sides and hands balled into fists, as if she were challenging the very stars that were beginning to shine through like tiny pinpricks of light against the dark fabric of the Scandinavian sky. Her long, green skirt billowed in the wind, the embroidered pink crocus designs of Arendelle's royal family dancing against her bare calves. _Hope_. Elsa realized. That was what separated her sister from herself, and to a lesser extent, her lover the former ice harvester. Whereas the queen and the ice master were pragmatic, untrusting and generally walked within the lines given to them by the universe, her sister had always sought to fly among the stars, crashing through the artificial boundaries of reality. Where Elsa saw the future as the cold embrace of the grave, her sister saw the perfectly eternal bliss of a happy ending.

Of course, marriage was the happy ending she had been seeking since right before the Great Freeze. The queen thought back to the time four years ago when her sister had asked permission to marry Prince Hans of the Southern Isles during that ill-fated night of her coronation. Elsa's shocked reaction to her sister, combined with the stress of the day was what started this entire saga in their lives, when she accidentally revealed her powers during the argument that followed. How fitting that this next saga in their lives begin under similar circumstances. Still, something didn't feel right. There was a certain…tightness in her chest, right below her breastbone upon picturing Anna and Kristoff standing at the altar, waiting to receive the queen's royal blessing. _Anna and Kristoff at the altar_. _Anna and Kristoff_. _Anna_. _Kristoff_. _Kristoff?_ Once again, the air refused to slide into Elsa's lungs. She felt cold.

"Is that too much to ask?" Anna's whisper flew in the wind, past Elsa as she approached her sister from behind. Who was she to impose herself between her sister and her happiness? She gently placed a gloved hand on Anna's bare shoulder.

"You can't marry a man you just met," she held her palm up to stop her sister from interrupting. "But you can marry one you've known forever." She smiled, a tiny hint of sadness hiding in her words as she released them. Elsa couldn't place a finger on what exactly she was feeling. Then again, she was never very good with feelings, of other people but especially with her own. It wasn't the thought of her sister getting married – she would still be right there in the castle, maybe in a different room or even across in another wing where Kristoff's quarters were. Kristoff. Nothing would change, Elsa lied to herself. As a liaison with the merchants of Arendelle, she and Kristoff would still discuss official business a few days a week. He'd still be there during meals, picking his nose when he thought nobody was looking. There'd be a lot less sneaking around from the two, however. Elsa pictured the times she'd noticed her sister and their ice harvester friend excusing themselves from meals with an uncanny sense of synchronicity. Or the times when she'd bump into her sister scampering back to her room in nothing but a flimsy stained slip. One time it was the ice master, sweaty and shirtless, a few feet away from her sister's door. He'd quickly apologized and ran off into the darkness leaving the queen standing wide-eyed, mouth agape for a few minutes afterwards. At least she learned that it wasn't the screams of a dying bird trapped inside the castle that had woken her up that night. Revisiting that memory, Elsa had a strange feeling she might have reacted differently to that situation had it happened a few days ago.

Anna turned around and faced the queen. Her face was different, somehow. A good different. There was a certain seriousness in her eyes that Elsa rarely ever saw, a certain sense of gravitas that she sometimes wished her sister had more often then not. "Thanks, Elsa. I knew you'd understand."

The princess wrapped her deceptively strong arms around the queen's thin waist and hugged her tight. "Whoa!" Elsa was surprised to feel her feet leave the ground. Anna wasn't the little girl that used to fall from her bike every now and then anymore. She was a grown woman. A strong woman judging from the complaints the queen was receiving from her ribs. Elsa hugged her sister back with much less force. She had no right to stand in the way of her sister's happy ending, no matter how much she dreamed of one for herself as well. "So, when did he ask?"

"Oh, I'm still waiting. You know Kris. He may be big and gruff officially but he's a shy little mouse," her sister said. Elsa snorted in amusement. _That he was_, she thought. "I was hoping you'd tell him. Or hint at it a little. Y'know?" Anna said with a chuckle.

_Wait, what? _For the umpteenth time that day, the queen was at a loss for words. She couldn't just tell Kristoff to ask her sister to marry her, right? She couldn't. Or she wouldn't? Her heart threatened to overpower the sound of rustling leaves above again. But she knew Kristoff well enough to know, it wasn't going to happen unless someone prodded him to. And her sister expressing what she had just said left all the dirty work to the queen.

Right on cue, as if to save her from committing to any decisions she might regret later, she saw four shadowy figures walk out from the trees at the base of the hill. Kristoff and Kaptein Hjalmarr Jorgen of the Arendelle royal guard walked on either side of Sven, while Olaf followed a few feet behind them. "Guys, you shouldn't walk so fast. My legs can't be as long as yours." He shouted to no one in particular.

Almost immediately, the princess sprung up and dashed towards the ice master, giving the queen one last look and a parting smile. "Thanks, sis. I trust you," she whispered loudly. Elsa watched Kristoff pick her sister up in his arms and spin her around in the air, and then drop her slowly into an embrace that ended up with them locking lips. He waved at her with one free hand. She managed a shy wave back.

The kaptein walked the reindeer around the hill towards the back where they had left their cart. The sky was a deep purple now, the last dying rays of sunlight a far memory that had disappeared a little over an hour back. Kai would be pacing the outer walls by now, asking the outer sentries every few minutes for sign of the royal family. Gerda would be in the kitchen, barking orders to the other maids as they rushed a dinner that would most likely be served cold.

Down the hill, the princess took the snowman's arm and followed Sven and the kaptein, while the ice master headed back up the hill towards Elsa. He held out a mitt-covered hand as he reached her. "Sorry we're late, Hjal was coming back from a short run from the nearest trading post." The queen took his hand and was gently pulled to her feet. She wondered for a bit how someone so strong could be so gentle. Her sister would have ripped her arm clean off. She knew from experience. "Everything alright?"

Elsa nodded as the two gathered their belongings in their arms. Down the hill, the kaptein had already brought around the cart that they had set out on that morning. Sven was hooked up beside a grayish horse in front of the carriage. The reindeer and was eyeing the other beast with what seemed to be disdain, a similar expression on the face of the snowman riding on his back. Olaf stuck an icy tongue out at the horse, who seemed to be ignoring the odd couple.

She stopped above the sealskin satchel that held her crown. In the dark, the embossed crocus symbol glinted at her, daring her to take it. She stared at the bag for a few moments, until she felt her heart jump as Kristoff slung his arm over and around her shoulder.

"You don't have to wear it, nobody will notice in the dark." He said reassuringly as he reached down and grabbed the thin leather strap attached to the purse, slinging it over his shoulder with four other larger leather packs. His words brought a smile of relief and to her face. It never ceased to amaze her how well he could read her, especially the past few months. Even things that Anna would miss. Especially things that Anna missed.

The queen felt the ice harvester's forearms behind her legs and back as he swept her off her feet in one deft movement. Surprisingly, she felt no urge to resist and instinctively draped her tired, clothed arms around his neck. "Ready to go, your tiredness?" She heard him ask. For the first time that day, Elsa let the exhaustion finally take over her and she just let her body grow limp in Kristoff's arms.

"Mmmmhhmmm." She managed to mumble. Through eyes closed shut, she imagined him looking down at her and smiling in that goofy way he always did towards her sister, one eyebrow raised and his large nose tilted at a cute angle. She smiled back up towards the ice master.

"So, what were you and Anna talking about while we were gone?" She heard him ask. The sound of her sister's voice was growing more discernible as they approached the bottom of the hill.

Elsa pushed back images of her sister, in a dress of pure alabaster, twirling a long white veil around her strawberry red braids, and then leaning up on her toes to lock lips with the man who currently carried her in his arms. Suddenly, the smell of masculine musk and reindeer fur mixed with fresh pine overwhelmed her senses. She didn't want to let go. She wanted this moment of weightlessness to last forever. She wanted _her _happy ending.

Eyes still shut and face pressed close against Kristoff's cotton-clad chest, Elsa took a deep breath and cleared her throat. "Nothing. Just…stuff. Nothing important at all," the queen of Arendelle lied through her teeth.


	6. Chapter 5: Transsubstantiatio

Princess Anna of Arendelle woke up from her slumber to the soft whispers of something scraping against wood. _Skritch_. _Skritch_. _Skritch_. Groggy and still straddling the fine line between dreamtime and wakedness, Anna tried to make sense of the noise without moving a muscle. They weren't the familiar sounds of castle rats skittering around on her bedroom floor, picking at the crumbs of bread and other bits of food that she and Kristoff would shove under the bed much to Gerda's dismay. The sounds were heavier, and yet softer, like a wet bag of wheat being dragged around. There was a controlled, careful rhythm to them, as if someone was purposely trying not to make any noise. It slowly dawned on the princess. There was someone else in the room.

Anna's heart suddenly came to life as she fought every urge to sit up and confront the intruder. It didn't smell like Kristoff and didn't have the faint, chill aura that her sister always seemed to have around her. Somebody else. Surprise was on her side, she realized as she tried to recall kaptein Jorgen's lessons the past few months. The last year had been a rather stressful time for the emerald knights of the Arendellian royal guard, with a growing air of civil unrest in the surrounding nations that formed the loose set of former Norge provinces that Arendelle was part of. Nothing substantial had reached the borders of their tiny country yet, but there were news of attempted assassinations on the aristocracy of the other nations. Taking no chances, the kaptein had taught the members of the royal family a few basic precautions in case of similar, untoward circumstances.

Without opening her eyes, the princess carefully reached under her pillows for the knife she kept tucked in between the mattress and the headboard. All those scoldings from Gerda for misplacing the palace silverware were now starting to feel a little bit worth the trouble. Anna held her breath and waited until the scratching sounds had reached the side of her bed, almost within arm's reach. And then, like a coiled spring, she struck.

With a flash of silver, the princess felt Gerda's missing steak knife #34 find its mark and bury itself into soft...ice. _Cold ice?_ Anna opened her eyes in confusion. It was then that she heard something that sounded like a mix between laughing and giggling.

"Oh look, I've been stabbed. Again."

"Oh my god, Olaf. I'm so sorry!" The steak knife made a clattering sound as the surprised princess pulled it out and hurled it off to the side. In front of her, wooden arms outstretched and with a big, single-toothed smile at her, was the sentient snowman that her sister had accidentally created four years ago.

Olaf rubbed some snow into the small crack in his mid-abdominal ball that the steak knife had left. "Hey Anna," he began. "Kristoff told me not to wake you, but I wanted to check on you so I decided to just stand outside your door until you were awake." He capped off his 'wound' with a round, black button and tapped his belly with a wooden arm. "There, nice and smooth. I think I'm losing weight. Anna, do I look like I'm losing weight?"

Anna stared at the diminutive snowman and tried to make sense of his words. _Kristoff was losing weight? No wait. Before that. Kristoff had told him not to wake her up?_ That puzzled the princess. Normally when someone was sent to wake her up, it was because she was about to miss breakfast, or some important meeting or something. She could understand the breakfast thing, but an important meeting? Who holds official functions at – her gaze wandered to the wooden Swiss clock on the small table on the other side of the bed – eight in the morning? Anna brought her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes. With a forceful yawn, she arched her back and stretched her half-responsive arms above her head. "Where is Kristoff anyway?"

"He was headed out the castle with Elsa and a bunch of important-looking people. Something about the docks?" Olaf was plodding around the room with the curiosity of a little boy. He stopped to look at himself in the mirror at her dresser, where there was the set of formal clothing she had left last night while waiting for Kristoff. It was Sunday night, their special night, and yet he had begged off saying he had to rest for some big diplomatic meeting the next morning. He was quite mum about details and asking her sister didn't get her any answers either. Anna thought it odd that Kai would schedule two diplomatic meetings for her sister in the same day, before noontime no less. She stared at the black corset that lay on top of one of her olive green dresses on the dresser that Olaf stood in front of. Two meetings. The meeting. _The_ meeting.

With wide eyes, the princess leapt out of bed and shoved the snowman posing in front of the mirror out of the way as she grabbed for her formalwear. Suddenly it all made sense. Today was the day of arrival of the new Papal States' envoy, the one the influential Mediterranean nation was sending thanks to her botched handling of the last diplomatic mission a little over a month ago. Anna had planned on tagging along and redeeming herself in her sister's eyes, which was why she had prepared her formalwear herself last night. The fact that Elsa and Kristoff still seemed to think of her as a liability, enough to leave her out of this affair irked her a little.

The princess quickly slipped out of her nightgown and into the green dress she had prepared. She briefly considered letting the snowman help her lace up her corset but a look at his twiggy hands banished that notion from her head. She decided to go without and threw on whatever was within reach to cover her exposed cleavage, which in this case was a flaxen sweater vest draped over the chair that Olaf was now sitting on. With no time to braid her hair, Anna grabbed one of the red ribbons hanging from her dresser and tied her lush, strawberry hair up into a high ponytail as she rushed out the room. "Sorry Olaf, gotta go!" She shouted over her shoulder as she rushed towards the stairway leading down and out of the castle.

Back in the Anna's quarters, Olaf the snowman just sat on the floor wide-eyed, mouth agape, staring at the dresser where his childhood friend had gone completely naked in-between dresses a few scant minutes ago. "So those are the apples that Kristoff keeps talking to Sven about." The princess didn't hear his laugh echo throughout the empty hallway.

* * *

The run through town was a rather quick blur for the princess, and that included the rush back into the castle when she realized she was still wearing casual sandals. Anna sped through the stone bridge that linked Castle Arendelle to the small town that bore the same name and headed straight to the docks near the town-end of the bridge. To her dismay, there were only a few small watercraft unloading a few loads of textiles onto a smaller barge parked closer to the stone dock. There was no sign of her sister, her lover or any other royal official at all. _The far docks_, she realized. Anna held the front of her long dress and proceeded to head East towards the far docks.

Along the way, various citizens recognized the royal princess and greeted her with smiles and waves, a stark contrast to how the solemn and restrained way they usually conducted themselves on those rare occasions when Elsa came out of the castle into the town proper. Even in a hurry, Anna found time to slow down and wave back, smile and greet the townspeople back, most of the time by name. Just another something that she realized that separated her from her sister. The queen could have used a more personal touch with the citizens, Anna thought as she waved to Elin Corvi, the teenage daughter of an immigrant Sicilian cobbler. Most of the citizens were up and about, going around their daily business. The princess breezed through the town in record time and was elated to see her sister and consort standing at the upper street-level platform of the Eastern docks. _Just in time_, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Gasping for breath, Anna reached the small group and immediately wrapped her arms around Kristoff's manly torso and buried her face in his starched formal jacket. "You guys can't get rid of me that easily!" She shot her sister a playful glance accompanied by her outstretched tongue. He looked back at her with a tinge of guilt on his face as he shot the queen a quick glance.

"Oh, Anna. You woke up after all." The queen shook her head at Anna. "Just in time too," she nodded towards the fjord, where a sailing vessel was nearing the harbor from the fjord. Atop the ship's single mast, Anna could make out a small half-and-half, yellow and white flag. _Just in time_.

She took a step away from the ice master as he smiled at her and nodded. They had talked about her managing her public stature a few weeks ago, a few nights after the last time her sister had accidentally iced her. She was aware how un-princesslike her typical daily conduct was and had agreed to take steps to tone herself down whenever at official functions, especially if Elsa was there with her. Anna took a deep breath and took another step away from Kristoff, held her hands together in front of her and faced the water. She had to be of her best conduct today, if she were to impress her sister with her professionalism.

It seemed to take forever for the ship to get to the dock. Around the princess, the other members of the receiving delegation stood in place. There was the archbishop of Arendelle, an old man around her sister's height, with short graying hair and dressed in the reddish-magenta robes of the Church of Norge. The expression on his face gave Anna the impression of impatient annoyance. Behind them were kaptein Jorgen and two other members of the royal guard, dressed in their ceremonial green livery and armor.

The princess allowed herself to be distracted by the morning sun shining on the metallic-green breastplates of the two younger guardians, elaborately decorated with the crocus pattern of Arendelle. She attempted to recall the names of these particular guards, whom she occasionally bumped into around the castle grounds. The younger of the two was a black-haired man not that much older than Kristoff. Anna recalled seeing him around the castle, always with his helmet visor down around his face. Kai Ragnarr, she remembered learning his name from when she bumped into him at an eatery in town, where he was drawing on a sketchpad he had with him. The other guardsman was an older, tanned man who wore his dark hair close-cropped and well-kept. Anna often saw him around the main castle gates and patrolling the outer walls, sometimes tapping on loose bricks and pointing out spots that needed reinforcement by a mason. Anna had perfected hiding from his late-night sweeps whenever she fooled around with Kristoff. She tried to remember the guardsman's name. Jorn Strommen, she recalled meeting him and his Turkish wife a few times around town.

Aside from the four, there was just Kristoff and Elsa, and of course herself. Kristoff was dressed in his full official regalia as the royal ice master and deliverer of Arendelle. He was clad in an all black formal coat and trousers with a red and gold sash across his right shoulder that ran to his left hip. From his neck hung a round, silver medal bearing the impression of Elsa's iconic snowflake pattern – the official insignia of the Royal Ice Master and Deliverer of Arendelle. Seeing the love of her life like this filled Anna's heart with so much pride. He had come so far, from that gruff and lonely ice harvester all those years ago.

They had all come so far. She looked at her sister, standing straight and tall with all the stature of a queen. The queen was in her most formal attire usually reserved for official state functions and meeting important foreign diplomats. It was the dark teal, floor-length dress with the tight black undershirt that covered her sister's upper body beneath the gown, all the way to her neck and to the backs of her hands. Her platinum blonde hair was done up in that impossibly complex braid that looped around the top of her forehead, short blond bangs peeking from under the mass, almost tickling her long, dark lashes. Instead of the long, trailing cape that normally accompanied this particular outfit, Elsa had one of her formal jacket-vests over, purple like her cape. As usual, Anna noted that her sister had her gloves on. _Better safe than sorry_, she thought as she turned her attention to the Papal States ship that was already at the dock.

Anna had never seen this kind of vessel before. It was a small, single-masted vessel much smaller than the _buis_ and _fluyts_ she was used to seeing in these waters. It was closer in size to the _Nordlandsbåt_ boats that local fishermen used to haul in their catches of cod and herring. It had two large, triangular sails, both attached to the mast. A smaller triangular sail sat atop the ship's stern, while an equally-small trapezoidal sail was on top of the mast, right below the flag flying the Papal State's colors. The princess noticed Kristoff trying hard to contain his excitement as his vision made love to the wooden craft. "It's a _tartane_," he tapped her shoulder. He had that same expression he always had whenever they would pass by the sleighcrafter's shop just outside town. "Oh man, we never get Mediterranean stuff up here," he exclaimed. Typical Kristoff, fawning over sleds and boats. Anna shook her head and directed her attention to the party that Kai, who was apparently waiting on the lower docks, was helping ashore.

Most of the ship's crew were tan, darker-skinned than the typical Scandinavian. Less than a dozen men were pulling on ropes and lowering sails under the command of who she assumed was the captain – a flamboyantly-dressed, rather handsome man in his early thirties. The captain turned and followed the rest of the small entourage onto the stone dock, leaving the crew behind. The group seemed rather strange to Anna, who was used to dealing more with Northern European diplomats from Corona and France. The hulking bodyguard type figure was the first to catch her eye. He stood at least a head above the rest, definitely taller than Kristoff. Dressed in outlandishly flamboyant blue-and-yellow striped garb, the rather aged man reminded her of Wandering Oaken, the owner and proprietor of Arendelle's most famous trading post. He was carrying a long polearm, which looked like a cross between an axe and a spear, on the tip of a long, wooden pole. It towered above the bodyguard. On the other side of the group was a young man, although she was being generous with the term. He looked to be a gaunt boy in his late teens, dressed in a dirty white, robelike habit that religious monks usually wore. He was carrying, or rather dragging a large wooden chest in his arms. Between the two was someone Anna assumed to be the actual diplomatic representative. Unlike the extravagantly-dressed bishop she had met a few weeks before, this man was dressed in an extremely nondescript and humble manner. He had on a similar white habit, similar to the one worn by the younger one beside him. On top of it was a thick, black outer robe that draped around the old man's shoulders down to his flanks. On top of that, he wore a necklace with a rather prominent wooden crucifix around his neck.

The quartet stopped in front of the royal family and removed their hats and lowered their hoods. "Her majesty, Queen Elsa of Arendelle," Kai announced in his 'official business' tone. Anna steeled herself for the next part, as much as she hated anything formal that came with being a part of the royal family. She prepared the bestest, widest, ear-to-ear smile she could muster as she mentally rehearsed her official princess face. "Princess Anna of Arendelle," she heard him say. She dipped and smiled at the entourage, who then bowed back in unison. _That wasn't so bad_.

Kai then proceeded, reading from an official-looking parchment that bore the seal of Arendelle and another one that she assumed was the Papal States' insignia. "May I present the official diplomatic envoy of the _Status Pontificus_, Bishop Demetrio Scordato of the _Ordo Praedicatorum_." More greetings were exchanged, and Anna noted that even the archbishop of Arendelle seemed genuine with his salutations.

"My apologies, your majesty but in the haste to update the official missive between our nations, there has been a mistake," the elder man spoke in a deep, powerful-yet-soothing voice. He was a middle-aged man appearing to be in his fifties, with slicked back, shoulder-length, silverish-grey hair without a strand out of place. Just behind his prominent, sharp nose were narrow, piercing eyes that sent a shiver down Anna's spine. The bishop looked like a person whose very presence could command the air in a room. "I am not a bishop, but a simple friar of my order." The authoritative voice didn't hurt his air of charisma either, Anna subconsciously decided.

"Apologies, your eminence." Elsa said, an uncomfortable hint of submissiveness in her tone, Anna noted. She had never head her sister this way before, not even when they were children. Elsa normally took to addressing others behind her royal veil of seriousness and authority. Even when meeting with other heads of state, such as those from the surrounding Norge kingdoms, Elsa had maintained her air of authority. Her tone this morning was different. To Anna, it sounded like Elsa was talking to a superior. Considering the aura she was feeling from the friar, Anna couldn't blame her sister.

"The royal family welcomes you to our tiny kingdom of Arendelle," her sister swept her right arm towards the town, bowing with a little flourish. The two groups coalesced and mingled for a few minutes, before Kai motioned for the group to head towards the castle on foot. The princess joined the procession between Kristoff and the queen, with the Papal States delegation on the other side. Kai and the young monk, who turned out to be a novice of the same order as the friar, were discussing formalities and scheduling, as far as Anna could make out. They had shifted to an Italian dialect, as the novice seemed to be more comfortable in his native tongue. At least that's what she think he told Kai. Either that, or he was selling his two front teeth. Anna shrugged. Her mother tried to teach the sisters Italian but it never caught on with Anna, as much as it did with her sister. And even then, the dialect her mother had spoken sounded just a little bit different, perhaps from a different region from these people.

Behind and flanking the group were the three royal guardsmen, who seemed at ease and were just enjoying the morning walk. Except for Jorn, who had the same, serious look on his face he always had. The friar's tall bodyguard walked beside the holy man, a similar stern demeanor about the towering individual. The princess noticed his eyes scanning the buildings as they passed by, eyeing the townspeople who stopped to bow and greet the queen. He was holding his weapon perfectly vertical, almost marching in step with his master. He reminded Anna of the occasional military drill held in the castle courtyard by the royal guard.

"Queen Elsa, I must admit that this is highly unorthodox and a rather humbling surprise," the friar addressed her sister. "I had not expected to be met by the sovereign of Arendelle. Even before I had stepped off the ship."

Elsa let out a small laugh. "Your eminence," she addressed the priest, "as you may already know, we are a rather unconventional country. And it is the least we can do concerning the…results…of the last Vatican diplomatic mission to Arendelle. It's surprising how fast his holiness sent a second delegation. Once again, my personal apologies to the bishop and the pope." Anna noticed her sister talking just a little bit faster than usual.

"Ah, second delegation. Yes, of course." The friar replied in near-perfect _Norsk_. The princess was glad they were speaking in a language she could at least eavesdrop in. Most diplomatic meetings she had been present at were conducted either in their native _Norsk_ or the more official _Dansk-Norsk_, another artifact of the formerly-close ties between her nation and the Southern Isles'. Although lately, the surrounding kingdoms had been adopting _Svenska_ as an official language, a fact that she knew worried her sister greatly. Sverige influence was growing all around them, and they needed all the allies they could gain. Trying to be inconspicuous, She leaned in a little closer to the friar and the queen's conversation.

"And please, your majesty. I am a simple friar of my order. Please, no undeserved honorifics. Just refer to me as brother Demetrio, or simply Demetrio."

"Friar Demetrio," Elsa responded. "I hope it is not too much out of protocol for you, but we invited our Catholics to witness your arrival," she gestured towards the gathered crowds along the main street that they were walking along. They were bowing to the queen but Anna noticed they were also genuflecting towards the Vatican diplomat. "You are the first representative we've had from the Vatican in decades. Perhaps since before the time of my father."

She was right, as far as Anna could remember. The people of Arendelle were not a heavily religious type. From what she could remember of her history, the few parishes they had were still from when they were part of greater Norge a little over half a century before. After the Sverige takeover and the birth of the Northern splinter kingdoms, the Church of Norge remained the unofficial religion of the citizens, although her grandfather had established the Church of Arendelle as somewhat of an analogue, with much less influence and power. Thanks to his rule, and that of the Arendelle council, the country was much less strict and became somewhat of a safe harbor in the North for people of different beliefs. At least that's what Anna remembered. She did know quite a few Catholics in town, and she remembered shopping around in the Jewish ghetto in Sogndal. She even recalled seeing a few Turkish sailors on the docks in Leirvik. They all seemed reasonably happy.

"Ah, I must apologize, Queen Elsa but we are not the first mission to Arendelle from the Vatican, or even my order," the elder man said with a wily smile while waving to the people who were kneeling at him. More and more of them were lining the streets, with looks of reverence on their faces, from young children to the elderly. Anna was amazed. They never looked at her like that. Hell, they didn't look at Elsa like that. She silently wondered about the power the church had. Behind them, the archbishop of Arendelle followed, casually conversing with Kristoff. Something about funds for roof repair. The princess sighed.

"The last time I was here, I do not remember it being so cold." The friar commented, eliciting a surprised look from the royal sisters. "Your majesty, forgive me for not mentioning it sooner but I as you know, your mother is…was Catholic, God rest her soul." His mention of the deceased former queen brought Anna closer to the two, almost walking in between the queen and the diplomat. "I was her personal counsel for a few years, before either of you were born."

Elsa looked at him with astonishment. "What? But there are no records of any diplomatic mission from the Vatican or any of the religious orders from 1814 onwards," her voice trailed off as she turned to Kai with one raised eyebrow. The portly servant was still talking with the novitiate, apparently something about horses and charcoal, at least if Anna's understanding of their Italian was accurate.

"Your father, the king had his reasons for keeping it unofficial," the friar replied. "It was a time when your kingdom's relations with both Norway and Sweden were in question. Even a mere rumor of non-Scandinavian influence, especially from the Vatican, would have caused some controversy to say the least." He explained.

The princess couldn't help herself and shoved herself between the two. "You knew mom? I mean, your holiness…eminent…fatherness…friar-ty…" she realized she had spoken too soon and had broken protocol. _Whoops_.

The queen's surprised glare was interrupted by the friar's fatherly tone. "Ah, princess Anna," he gave her a warm, relaxed smile, much different from the formal expression he had while talking to her sister. "Yes, I knew your mother. In fact, your heartiness and candidness reminds me of her." His face expertly shifted to a more serious but just-as-warm smile as he turned towards Elsa. "However, it is you, your majesty, that is the spitting image of your mother." Anna noticed a slight blush behind Elsa's cheeks, and a hint of sadness in her eyes. She knew how much she hated being reminded of the fact that Elsa was indeed, very similar in appearance to their deceased mother.

The friar's disposition towards her surprised the princess. The other Vatican diplomat had insisted on a load of formalities and protocols that frankly overwhelmed her which resulted in the rather, unfortunate situation that unfolded on the docks a month ago. Still, the princess had moved a little farther backwards as they reached the bridge that spanned the distance between Arendelle town and the little island upon which Castle Arendelle was built on. At the castle's inner gates, the two groups separated for a while in order to let the Papal States delegation prepare for the formal meeting in the afternoon. Elsa, the Archbishop, Kai and Friar Demetrio went straight to the reception room on the ground level. The three royal guards accompanied the friar's bodyguard, following behind the diplomatic party.

* * *

The princess pulled Kristoff away from the group before the queen could notice or mount an objection and they snuck off to the pantry to raid Gerda's diminishing bread stores. The stern woman simply shook her head as she handed roll after roll to the starving pair, punctuated by bouts of slapping the ice master's hand away from the huge jar of pickled herring he had dragged from one of the cabinets. "Young man, use a utensil or you will end up spoiling the rest!" She scolded him.

"Aw come on, Gerda. You don't complain as much when Anna does it." He pleaded, poking ineffectually at a slab of fish with a wooden skewer. It kept sliding down the stick as he raised the chunk above the level of the oil in the jar.

Anna stuck her tongue out at him, only to have Kristoff poke her in the mouth with a half-eaten stick of bread no bigger than her finger. She glared at him, then started chewing on the soft pastry, before gulping it down with a satisfied grin.

"I'll have you know master Bjorgman, the princess has received her share of scoldings for shoving her hands in places they're not supposed to be in," the old maid capped the jar tightly, giving the ice master another glare that seemed to imply something else. He grinned back at her sheepishly. So did Anna.

"Oh you two, I'm joking." The old woman ruffled Kristoff's hair with one hand while patting Anna's head with the other. She laughed a hearty laugh as she handed the ice master an expertly-made roll with a slice of pickled herring in the middle. Anna had no idea how Gerda did it, she wasn't even holding a knife. "I was young once, you know-"

"Could've fooled me," Kristoff muttered under his breath, only to receive a smack on the nose with another stick of bread. A mock-hurt look crossed his eyes, before he took the stick and started nibbling on it, his other hand still holding a half-eaten herring roll.

"Just don't be too obvious in front of your sister. We all know how…strict she is. Especially about touching," Gerda reminded the couple. "I can only imagine how the poor girl feels. You're the first and only person she has ever been able to touch in years," she faced the princess with a sudden, serious tone in her voice. "It must be torture for her to see you and Master Bjorgman so close, knowing she may never know that feeling herself." Gerda's tone went comfortably motherly when she spoke of the young queen, more so than even when the maid spoke to the princess, Anna realized. Ever since they were young, it was Gerda who was like a second mother to them, even after the incident. And then after their parents died, she was the closest to a mother the two girls had known.

After a few moments of silence, the elder woman piped up. "Well, that's no way to start the day! Chop! Chop!" She clapped her hands together in such a way as to put smiles back on the young couple's faces. Gerda then gave the princess a knowing look. "Anna, dear. Don't forget what I taught you, ok?"

Anna felt a certain warmth rush to her cheeks and she looked down with a guilty grin. "Yes ma'am. Seven days before, and then another seven days after." She stole a guilty look towards Kristoff, who just looked generally puzzled and confused.

Gerda gave him the same knowing look from before, shaking her head at the princess half-scoldingly. "You haven't told him?"

"N-no..." Anna stammered, shaking her head so wild that her ponytail whipped back and forth against her rosy cheeks.

"Then how?" Gerda looked at Kristoff with a befuddled look on her face. The tall man just stared back at her with an equally confused expression. The princess sighed as she felt a confession surfacing. In the four years since she and Kristoff had been together as a couple, this was one of those aspects she wasn't exactly sure how to feel about.

The princess covered her face with her hands, unable to contain her embarrassment. Anna could feel the blood rush to her head, making the room seem both smaller and larger at the same time. "I-I'm usually the one who starts..." she squeaked out as she peeked with one eye from behind a curtain of fingers.

The ice master stood dumbfounded, eyes open wide and mouth agape, a half-eaten fillet of herring hanging from his teeth. "Oh," he said meekly as what the two women were talking about finally dawned on him. With a cough, he quickly looked down at his feet, awkwardly scratching his head.

Gerda stepped behind his massive frame and slapped his muscular behind with a loud cackle. "Oh, he reminds me of Kai even more now!" She sent Anna a playful grin. "Princess, I can't believe after all these years, I'm teaching you the exact opposite of what I taught your mother when your parents were trying to have your sister." The maid shook her head with a laugh. "Ah, those were...interesting times," she gazed up as if picturing a scene from a time long past. "In any case, princess, you know. Keep to it. Heaven knows how your sister might take any unforeseen...complications, much less the rest of the kingdom."

She threw the ice master a sideways glance. "Especially before the wedding."

The mountain man choked and coughed in response to the old maid. Anna tried to stifle a giggle as her beloved's face turned beet red in record time. She watched him force the last of his herring roll down with a gulp and finish a cup of water, coughing in between sips. "I uh, need to head to uh, the meeting. Merchant stuff. Serious business." she watched him quickly disappear in a flash of black cotton and blonde hair.

Anna and Gerda exchanged glances for a minute while the princess finished what was left of the roll she was nibbling on. Silently, she picked a small cup of water from the table and took a few sips. Afterwards, the princess politely excused herself and ran out the door after the ice master.

"Well, I tried." Gerda threw her arms in the air in surrender.

* * *

Anna caught up with Kristoff as reached the tall, purple and teal doors that led to the castle's official receiving room. The couple stood in front of the door for a few, uncomfortably silent moments while the sound of muffled conversation bled under the door, filtered by the rug that was wedged halfway between the door and the wooden floor.

After a minute of awkward silence, the princess stopped fiddling with her thumbs. "Hey."

She felt the ice master's gentle touch on the small of her back, a slight, affectionate stroke with the tips of his fingers that traced her spine upwards through the furrow behind her shoulder blades and ending with the warmth of his palm on the back of her neck. "Hey yourself." He smiled at her.

She grinned back, relieved that he didn't seem to be taking Gerda's teasing hard. It _was_ just teasing, right? Anna couldn't remember if she had ever mentioned her growing impatience with Kristoff and the direction their relationship was going. Perhaps she had inadvertently blurted it out on one of those rare nights when the sisters and the ice master bonded over a bottle of imported wine? Rare indeed, Anna sighed. She missed the image of Olaf walking around, serving the trio with a bottle of liquor that he had stuck in his belly. Sometimes, Sven would even be there, eating carrots that Kristoff had soaked in some spirits instead. _How time flies_, the princess thought as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was a moderately-sized room, the size of her sleeping quarters and then some. The walls were decorated in the official Arendelle livery, a mix of six-sided abstract patterns and the iconic Arendellian crocus. Beside the door, just inside the room, stood kaptein Jorgen and the friar's bodyguard on opposite sides of the entryway. They stood at attention, flanking any would-be entrants to the room. Anna felt the bodyguard's eyes scanning her and Kristoff intently, even without looking at the imposing man. The kaptein on the other hand was a welcome face, and he respectfully nodded towards the two in silent acknowledgement. At the far end of the room, the thick purple drapes adorning the ceiling-high windows were drawn, allowing the noontime sun to illuminate the room with bright sunlight. The receiving room was exquisitely decorated, compared to the otherwise Spartan condition of the other rooms in the castle. Various gifts and baubles from other countries adorned the various shelves around the room. In the center of the room was a large, round, wooden table around which the Arendelle and Papal States delegation members sat.

There was friar Demetrio, looking rather imposing in his black habit, his elbows on the table holding both hands in front of his face, fingers interlocked. The elder man appeared to be deep in thought. Beside him, scribbling on what looked to Anna like a small book, was the younger novitiate. Apparently, he was also the friar's scribe of some sort. The Archbishop of Arendelle sat across the two Italians on the other side of the table with a stack of flat, white paper in his hands that he was casually looking over. Sitting beside him was the ever-loyal Kai, who like the friar's assistant, was also scribbling down notes in his case on a thick stack of parchment. The queen sat beside him, proper and poised as the princess had gotten used to seeing her sister conduct herself during official functions. She turned her head towards the door and quickly winked at the sight of her two closest confidantes.

"Ah, princess Anna. How nice of you to finally grace us wit your presence," Elsa stood and greeted the pair. As the rest of the delegates stood to face the door, Elsa winked again at her sister and gestured to the left corner of her mouth, first with her eyes and a tilt of her head, then with her hand.

"Oh," Anna quickly wiped the piece of fish that was stuck to her lower lip, shot her sister a quick and silent 'thanks' and bowed to the others. She chastised herself internally for missing that little chunk, when she had been licking savory, hickory-tasting oil around her lips for the few minutes it had taken to get to the receiving room from the pantry.

"Princess," the friar bowed back, then walked towards her companion. "And you must be the esteemed 'ice master' that your queen has been talking about." The friar rubbed his hands and eyed Kristoff with curious interest.

The normally-rugged mountain man managed a polite, formal bow towards the holy man. "Sh-she has?" He stammered, stealing a quick glance at the queen. Anna noticed that her sister was looking at him like a proud mother introducing her favorite son.

"Yes, yes. Master Bjorgman. I have been hearing of you from my Venetian acquaintances as well." The friar kept rubbing his hands, sweeping his gaze across the ice master from head to toe. "They say you drive a rather hard bargain for the goods of your fine nation." He teased.

"Just looking out for the interests of Arendelle, sir." The man Anna was used to rapidly disappeared as Kristoff took on a more commanding stance, legs apart and arms behind his back with a look on his eyes that meant business. Ah, merchant-Kristoff, a side of her beloved that she rarely saw outside of these official meetings. There was a slight hint of cockiness in his voice that Anna best remembered from the time they first met, when he confronted Wandering Oaken about the price of a pickaxe and some carrots four years ago during the Great Freeze. The results of that exchange weren't as favorable for the ice harvester back then as they eventually got over the past few years of him overseeing Arendelle's commerce.

The friar seemed to acknowledge the ice master's change of demeanor as well. "Ah, yes of course. It will be interesting to finally do official business with your kingdom." With a flourish, the friar returned to the table as Anna and Kristoff made their way to the Arendellian side of the room.

"Where were we?" Elsa asked Kai as she placed her hand on her sister's lap and gave Anna's thigh a playful squeeze under the table. The princess was surprised at this gesture, and quite relieved to know her sister was finally loosening up. Ever since the past few weeks, Elsa had been a little more open and less-reserved. This was a surprise though, her sister being rather un-Elsa-like in a middle of an important meeting no less, even in secret. Anna took her sister's gloved hand and squeezed back, out of sight of the others at the table save Kristoff who settled into his seat beside her. Kai had moved his stack of papers on the table in front of the seat on the ice master's other side, opposite the princess.

"I believe the current topic of discussion was the establishment of an official Catholic church," both Kai and the novice chimed in unison, both individuals reading from their notes. They glanced at each other, then returned to their note-taking.

"Yes, yes. Of course. Friar, I hope you understand Arendelle's current stance on the matter," Elsa said. Anna had sat in at official meetings before and had gotten used to her sister's authoritative voice while in them. She hoped this one wouldn't end with Kristoff poking her awake over and over to prevent her snoring from disturbing the meetings.

"Of course, your majesty. My order is prepared to cover all costs of construction and maintenance, and the Vatican shall shoulder the rest including payment for lease of the land." The friar continued. Anna felt a certain sense of relief that she had arrived when she had, otherwise her cheek would have a rendezvous with the wood of the table. Even now, less than a few minutes into the discussion, the dark, varnished wood was starting to beckon towards the princess.

Elsa turned to face Kristoff. "Master Bjorgman, input? Any thoughts on the location?" Anna unconsciously started twiddling her thumbs underneath the table as her sister nodded towards the ice master.

"Well," he started. "Despite being the capital, Arendelle is a small town so it wouldn't make much sense to have the church here. The next logical choice would be Sogndal, but as we've discussed before, it's dangerously close to the Eastern border."

_Hmph_. They've discussed this before? When? The princess wondered if her sister had been stealing her boyfriend the past few weeks to discuss church locations of all the boring things to talk about.

"Yes, I have been aware of the growing Swedish influence in your cluster of the world." The friar's voice took on a somewhat serious tone. "The Tzar's influence over the Grand Duchy of Finland is causing your neighbors to look to your border instead, no?" He asked, rhetorically. "Somewhere West then?"

"Weaseltown." Kristoff shook his head. "We haven't been on good terms with them, and consequently the British Empire the past few years." Anna tried to recall the last time they were far West. It was a picnic on the shore, some _mil_ Southwest of the tiny hamlet of Selvik. No Wesels as far as she could remember, but then that was years ago. She had heard of accounts from fishermen on the docks of being harassed by Weseltonians in the North Sea but nothing seriously substantial.

"Not to mention the Church of England," the Archbishop chimed in from Elsa's other side. Anna had almost forgotten that the Arendellian religious leader was among them. He seemed rather uneasy at the presence of the friar. From what Anna could recall, there was some animosity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches of Europe, of which the Church of Norge belonged. As for the splinter Church of Arendelle, she couldn't exactly remember anything significant to the discussion at hand. She still wasn't sorry she hadn't paid attention to the religious studies tutor during those rare times when her parents had one visit the castle for her education. She found the topic fairly boring.

Still, the topic of Weselton did refresh a few memories in Anna's mind. Mostly memories from Elsa's coronation ball, when her sister had volunteered her to dance with the Duke of Weselton. The princess giggling at her vivid memories of the duke jumping around holding his hand atop what turned out to be a rather haphazardly-attached toupee. He had said it was dancing, at the time. Like a monkey with the face of a chicken indeed. Or was it the other way around? She giggled louder, then felt her left palm being squeezed by a soft, gloved hand.

"Princess Anna, any input?" With a lopsided smile, her sister shot her a sideways glance. Anna glared at the queen and squeezed hard, enough to see the daintier woman wince. Her sister seemed to have this knack for finding the exact moment to put the princess on the spot, so to speak. It was the Weselton dance all over again. What was she doing? Anna wondered. This was supposed to be too important a meeting that they had almost left her out of it this morning.

The princess bolted up in her seat, her eyes darting around the room. She tried to think of a relevant answer, or at least something to say that wouldn't embarrass her sister. Western Arendelle. Most of the country past Sande was either farms or fjords. Anna tried to think of anywhere in the area she had been to. "Uh, Hyllestad? Wait. That's too um...not-populatey? Hmm. How about Førde?" That was the second name to pop up in her head. It was the biggest town in the West she could think of, on Arendelle's Northern border. She hoped it would suffice.

"Anna..." Elsa's brow notched a little bit, a hint of frustration in her voice.

Kristoff held his hand up in response. "No wait, Anna's got a point. It's well-populated, still within a few day's reach of most of Arendelle, and it's on a neutral border so we might get people from some of the Northern kingdoms to come over." He had definitely gone into full merchant-mode, Anna could tell by the enthusiastic way he was expounding on her suggestion. He certainly knew his management-y stuff, she thought. "So, with an increased guard presence but with more relaxed borders, we could maybe attract other, non-local _nordmenn_, and maybe help our commerce out a little?"

Anna felt genuinely surprised at her lover's reception to what she initially thought was just another one of her half-baked suggestions. The others in the room seemed to agree, even Elsa who was nodding her head as Kristoff described the town of Førde to the Italians. The actual demographics flew over Anna's head. She didn't really care much for numbers, prestegjeld population levels and all that stuffy stuff that Kristoff and Elsa fawned over whenever the three of them were together discussing semi-official kingdom stuff. It was the people that interested the princess, like that time at the Førde docks when Dag, a local fisherman that she had talked to the day before hauled in a large shark from the Jølstra river. It was more than twice the length of two Kristoffs, or three Elsas, she reminisced as she pictured the two of them helping pull the enormous sea monster's carcass off the boat and onto the rocky shore. She also remembered her sister's face as she was splattered with the shark's oily innards when Anna pulled out an intestine with a little too much overexcitement. Elsa had to change into her ice dress on the spot, surprising most of the gathered townspeople who hadn't seen their ice queen's powers in person before. Most of them took it rather well. Most of them.

Anna abruptly pulled herself out of her impromptu trip down memory lane to look at the members of the Papal States delegation, still intently listening to the ice master as he enumerated some of Arendelle's tradable export goods. A thought crossed her mind. Did they know about her sister's gift? So far, the surrounding countries of Scandinavia and Northern Europe were at least aware of Arendelle's unique monarch, no thanks to their cousin Rapunzel's big mouth. It seemed like every country whose high-ranking officials made a trip to Corona immediately sent unsolicited greetings and gifts to Arendelle right after. Anna sighed as she pictured cousin Punzy excitedly throwing her hands around imitating her sister's snowflakes while the dashing Prince Eugene stood in the background, leaning against a wall. _Memories_.

Her sister's commanding voice knocked her out of her half-daydreaming. "Well, that's that. Kai, please prepare the relevant documents for signing later?"

"Of course, your majesty," Kai responded, his hands already reaching towards one of the inkwells on the table near him. Anna noticed that Kristoff wasn't using a plume and ink, like Kai and the scribe were. In his hand, he held what appeared to be a short wooden stick with the words 'Keswick' printed on it. _Cute_. Another one of his toys, the princess assumed.

"On to matters of trade, I believe you should take the lead again, Master Bjorgman?" Elsa's eyes lit up as she focused the table's attention on Kristoff. The queen sat back, almost beaming as Kristoff started discussing trade matters. The friar appeared to take a back seat to the discussions, allowing his apprentice to answer the ice master's questions. The princess sat up straight and moved her hands underneath the table. One hand grasped her sister's while the other one she placed on the ice master's thigh. Anna squeezed. Kristoff almost yelped while trying to convince the friar of the superiority of Arendellian ice from that harvested from the Alps. The princess bit her cheek and looked at the large, standing clock that was against the wall beside the friar's bodyguard. _10:13_. This was going to be a long meeting. She might as well have some fun. She squeezed again.

* * *

The meeting had gone on for another two hours before Gerda and a few other maids ushered the delegates to the formal dining hall where the smell of freshly-roasted salmon made Anna's stomach grumble. Formal meals were always Kristoff's weak point, and the princess made sure to sit beside the ice master so she could whisper cues and guide him as to which utensil to use when, and to kick him underneath the table whenever he was doing something against protocol.

Thankfully, the former mountain man had been relatively well-behaved during the entire meal, only talking with a mouthful of salmon less than half-a-dozen times. The friar and his apprentice didn't seem to notice, neither did the archbishop, who had excused himself after the meal to return to the town cathedral. To the princess, he seemed to be in a hurry to leave. That polite-yet-heated discussion the two religious leaders had over the differences between the Protestant Churches of Europe and the Catholic Church probably had something to do with it. Anna and Kristoff kept their heads down for the entire exchange, playfully kicking each other under the table while the queen tried her best to mediate between the two parties. Amusingly, the friar's apprentice was scribbling throughout the entire discourse, most probably on one of his little paper-bound-booklets on his lap.

Anna was quite relieved when Gerda and the others came in to clear the plates and dishes from the table. As Elsa and Kristoff stood to leave, Anna saw the friar's bodyguard standing by the door opposite kaptein Hjal as usual. "What about your guard guy?" She blurted out at the friar, before she realized the unofficial candidness of her question. They never really talked about the non-diplomatic members of delegations they met, but the towering hulk of a man with the poleaxe just piqued Anna's curiosity more than any other diplomat she had met in the past year.

The friar looked at the princess, with what seemed like a genuinely puzzled expression. "Hmm? Oh, Rainier. Yes. Don't worry about him, your highness. He knows his way around diplomatic protocol, as he has been my personal Swiss Guard for years now." The old man nodded towards his tall guardian and Anna looked at him clearly for the first time since the day started.

The guardsman stood at attention, his weapon as straight as his military-perfect form, held with his left hand at a slight angle no more than a few inches away from his body. He was dressed in something that seemed more like a parade dress, with thick, yellow-and-blue stripes running the entire length of his billowing sleeves. His leggings bore the same boisterous pattern, ending in a pair of exquisitely-shined black leather shoes. Atop his head was something that looked like one of those French _berets_, that Anna had brought back from Calais. His wardrobe seemed like a bad marriage of French and Spanish fashion, on a Swiss no less. _Cute_, she thought to herself.

"So he's Swiss?" She asked the friar innocently.

"Yes, and no." The old man gestured to the guardsman. "The Pontifical Swiss Guard have been the official royal guard of Vatican City for almost two hundred years now. They aren't usually seen outside of the Papal grounds outside of extraordinary circumstances." The friar walked over to his bodyguard and placed his hand on the taller man's left forearm. "Rainier here has accompanied me on many a diplomatic mission, and there have been instances where I would not be standing here before you right now if not for his god-given gifts." As if on cue, the guardsman took off his hat and bowed towards the Arendellians. Standing side-by-side, the Swiss towered over the Italian, whose head barely reached up to the guard's shoulder. _Yep, taller than Kristoff_, Anna decided.

Anna noticed Kristoff whispering into Elsa's ear, and her sister nodding in response. She tried hard to listen in on the conversation, but it was already a difficult task to stand prim and proper when she wanted to run out the castle grounds and bask in the after-lunch, noontime sun. "Your eminence, if I may." Elsa stepped towards the friar.

"If it isn't too intrusive, I would like to volunteer a retinue of royal guardsmen to accompany you in your travels around the kingdom. Both as an issue of security and perhaps to aid you as local guides, for all it's worth." Her sister suggested, gesturing towards kaptein Jorgen.

The friar paused for a while, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose additional security would be welcome.

The Papal States would not take too kindly to any untoward incidents facing an official diplomatic delegation." He mused out loud, perhaps a little bit too loudly, the princess thought. "Perhaps just one guardsman, so as not to be too intrusive to the local flock?" He smiled.

Elsa turned her head towards the green-armored kaptein of the Arendelle royal guard. "Kaptein? Any suggestions?" Anna grinned internally. She knew that look on her sister's face. She had no idea who to suggest. She probably didn't even remember any of the guardsmen's names except for Hjal, and even then just. _People and Elsa just didn't mix_, Anna thought.

The armor-clad soldier looked deep in thought, then looked up as he spoke. "I was thinking either Løytnant Ragnarr or Løytnant Strommen. Perhaps the latter?" He referred to the dark-skinned member of the royal guard which accompanied them on the docks early that day. Anna thought about it a little. Jorn Strommen was a by-the-book, strict and stuffy guardsman. She smiled. _Yeah_, he would fit well with the equally stuffy Italians.

The look on her sister's face was blank. She so did not recognize the two names even though she was trusting them with her life just few hours ago. Anna shifted her eyes a little to the side to meet Kristoff's stolen glance. The couple shrugged at each other in unison, something they've had years of practice to perfect.

"Your eminence?" She asked the friar.

He looked at the queen, then at kaptein Jorgen and then at the Swiss guardsman. "Hmm, yes. That will be most generous of you, your majesty." He bowed, then turned to Hjal. "Captain, is it? Well then, I would like to meet with your man."

As soon as the rest of the Vatican delegation was outside the dining hall doors, Anna ran to Kristoff and threw her arms around the bulky mountain man. Then with one outstretched arm, she hooked in the queen's elbow and pulled her into the hug. "I hate you guys. I really hate you guys," she said as she buried her face between her lover's hard stomach and her sister's much softer chest.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful as Kai led the Vatican delegation around the other buildings within castle grounds, meeting with Elsa's advisors and other council members that had travelled to the capital to meet with the friar. The princess didn't realize how important this Papal States deal was, which made her regret botching that first meeting even more.

* * *

It was late at night when Princess Anna heard loud voices coming from the staircase. The sounds were the voices of two people arguing. Or at least, an older male berating a much younger one. Groggy and thirsty, she made her way past the dimly-lit corridor outside her quarters barefoot. Gerda had forgotten to refill the pitcher of water in her room and a slight breeze had roused her from her deep and restful slumber.

In her nightgown, the princess snuck downstairs only to bump into the Papal States' novitiate carrying the dark, wooden chest he was lugging from the boat earlier in the day. With a loud crash, the two fell on the ground in a shower of parchment and paper. "Whoops, sorry!" The princess apologized, picking up a wooden crucifix and a heavy tome bound in leather and metal. At first she thought it was an oversized bible, but as she looked at the open book, the language was unfamiliar to her. The page the tome was accidentally opened to featured a finely-detailed drawing of a figure holding his arms up towards the sky. Above him, or her she couldn't tell, a giant pattern hung above the figure. It was an enormous snowflake. Hmm. She stared hard at the illustration before handing the book over to the novice, who quickly shut the book and latched it back in place with two leather straps that hung from the tome's binding. From around the corner, another figure emerged from the shadows.

It was Friar Demetrio, who appeared quite surprised to see the princess. "Princess Anna." He held out a gnarled yet substantial hand towards her. "I see you've also inherited your mother's penchant for roaming the castle in the wee hours of the morning." He pulled her up steadily. Anna tried to contain her surprise, as she expected much less force than that which he hoisted her waifish frame up with.

"I ah, was going to get a snack when I heard voices down here." She pulled down the lower edge of her nightgown in an attempt to hide her bare feet, then realized she was stretching her neckline down and exposing her ample cleavage. _Whoops_. She let go of her dress and hoped the two Italians hadn't noticed.

Thankfully, the old friar was either too nice or polite to notice. "Voices, you say? Please be careful then." He took an ornate pocketwatch he had in one of the folds of his black habit, opened it and showed it to the slightly-embarrassed princess. It was at least two hours past midnight. "Oh young Anna, do you know that three o'clock is the witching hour? It is when they say the devil is at his strongest and evil spirits roam free." His voice had taken a somewhat ominous tone, the same as when Gerda told her and her sister scary stories at night when they were young.

"Spirits?" She glanced around. The hallway they were in was one of the intersections that led to the different wings of the castle. To save on oil, there were only a few candles spaced-out every few meters, in small sconces on the walls. What little light illuminated the corridors wasn't helped much by the white of the moon reflected on the wall on the far end. The friar himself was carrying a small lantern, ornately decorated from what the princess could see. It had various shades and mirrors that focused light in just one direction. Definitely not one of theirs.

"Old folk tales, my child. Nothing but old folk tales. But the devil himself is real, and not to be underestimated." She felt him place his fingers on her arm. Maybe it was just the chill, March air but they were cold, much colder than Elsa's. "Ah well, as I often told your mother all those years before, have a good night's sleep your majesty. May God watch over you as you sleep." The old man bowed and waited for the princess to head back upstairs before turning to his ward.

Anna returned to her quarters to find them slightly colder than before. One look at the shadows dancing on the wall was all she needed to close the curtains and scramble under the covers. She had no urge to blow out the tiny lamp Kai had left burning on the dresser on the other side of her bed.

She hugged herself with both arms, wishing she were in Kristoff's warm embrace. They had both agreed that tonight was too great a risk to fool around. With guests at the castle, extremely conservative ones no less, seeing the princess gallivanting around with a man she wasn't married to was just not something Arendelle was prepared to deal with, Gerda had warned the two. Besides, it had been a rather exhausting day for everybody involved. Even Elsa, who had normally been staying up late in her study for the past few weeks had crashed face-down on her bed in exhaustion. Kristoff had patiently waited outside while the princess undressed her barely-conscious sister and tried to slip on one of her blue, cotton nightgowns. In the end, she had to call the ice master in who tried not to look at the naked, prone body on the bed as they buried the snoring queen under three thick quilts the princess had dug out from one of the closets.

This wasn't the first time they had to deal with her sister's unconscious, nude form before but Anna noticed a slight difference in the way her lover snuck glances at her sister's form when he thought she wasn't looking. Anna smirked. Elsa would kill her if she found out. She felt a twinge of jealousy at the way his eyes shone as he looked at her sister. He hadn't looked at her naked body like that in a while. Oh well. Her urges would have to wait the next night when the Papal States delegation left for the other parts of Arendelle. One night might have seemed forever to the lonely princess, but tonight was not a want of lust or even love.

Anna tried to ward off thoughts of witches and devils, evil spirits roaming the night as the clock beside her bed ticked inevitably towards the so-called witching hour the friar had mentioned. Instead, she tried to distract herself to sleep by recalling the cover of the ornate book she had handed to the friar's novice. The one with the drawing of a person and a snowflake that eerily reminded her of her sister Elsa.

It was written in a weird language, not unlike Italian but somehow not. Latin, most probably. She should ask her sister in the morning. If anyone in Arendelle knew Latin it would be her, although Anna doubted it. She remembered a tutor referring to it as a dead language. Oh well. She definitely didn't recognize the words scrawled across its wood and leather cover. What were they? The words finally came to the princess a few, scant moments before she drifted into sleep. _Malleus Maleficarum_.


End file.
